Review - Paranormalcy by: Kiersten White

Title: Paranormalcy
Author: Kiersten White
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 335
Format: Paperback / Turkish edition
Source: Received from Turkish publisher for review

Description:

Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.

But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

So much for normal.

My thoughts:

Reading about Evie’s world, which pulls together anything paranormal you can think of, was like getting out of the city and drawing in a long, fresh breath. Most paranormal books, especially the YA ones, are very similar. Did Kiersten White create a whole new, different world? Well, not really. But the characters for me made it different than most of the others I’ve read.

Evie is an orphan who grew up in the system. When her “paranormal ability” is discovered, she’s recruited by the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA). She’s a 16-year-old girl with the ability to see through paranormal beings’ disguises. She lives at IPCA’s headquarters, and her job is to hunt down paranormal beings and tag them. Therefore, IPCA prevents them from harming humans. Or so they think…. You’ll, of course, find out how that goes down in the book.

Just like most YA books, in Paranormalcy as well, the reason for chaos to start is a boy. One day, when a boy called Lend shows up at the headquarters, he’s immediately quarantined because he’s a paranormal they don’t know about. Evie finds him very attractive, therefore her curiosity about him arises. She’s already longing for leading a “normal” life, and it’s not long before she questions what she’s doing and where she comes from. In addition, the paranormals she tags start to die, which just makes everything get a whole lot more chaotic.

The cover art for the series have a beautiful girl on them that fits Evie’s description. But starting from the first few pages, I pictured her Buffy Summers due to the Whedonesque dialogs and attitude. And when Lend, the boy she ends up falling head-over-the-heels for was described as a black-haired hottie, I could put Angel’s face on her even though I’m more of a Spike fan. So, to me our couple looked something like this:

 Even due to the unusual circumstances Evie is in, she felt very real to me. Just like most teenage girls, she too is obsessed with a TV show, Easton Heights. When I was around her age, we had 90210, and we were split to two: those who fancied Dylan and those who fancied Brandon. Some of us dreamt of being Kelly, and some of us Brenda.

In conclusion, it’s a *beeeeep* fun book.

*You’ll get my attempt at a joke when you read the book.