REVIEW: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

            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.

            While I really enjoyed Paranormalcy by Kiersten White, the book also kind of irked me toward the end. Evie’s character just seemed to wear me down after a while. I thought the book was fun and quirky for sure, but I could only read it in short bursts every couple days. This is not the kind of book I could ever read all through the night without stopping. I would lose all my brain cells and desire to ever read again.

            That being said, I want to mention again that I did enjoy the book, but it’s not one I ever care to read again. Evie is the platinum blond, pink loving, high school obsessed girl, Lend is the mysterious boy, and Reth is the mysterious boy with an ulterior motive. There wasn’t a lot of depth to the story. Sure, Evie was raised to be a supernatural snatcher who always thought she was human until learning otherwise, but her character was so stereotypical. The only way this story deviates from normal teenybopper stories is that Evie wants to be “normal” instead of “special”. Plus, I just can’t take a protagonist very seriously when they are infatuated with the color pink.

            The plot wasn’t awful. I actually enjoyed getting to learn new supernaturals, and seeing them in different ways. However, this book is literally all about Evie getting to a normal life and that’s insanely boring. I want to delve further into the supernatural realms! I read paranormal YA for the paranormal aspect. If I wanted to read a high school story, then I would stick to a contemporary YA. I loved that Evie was strong and independent, but she was so blinded by her need to be normal that she never even bothered to learn everything she could about the supernaturals she dealt with every day.

            My favorite part of the story was honestly the writing. Not what was written necessarily, but just Kiersten White’s writing. I think she did exceptionally well with her pacing of the story and there were a lot of spots where I laughed and even one where I cried. For a debut, White did great. However, it was a debut and there were flaws in the characters, plot and premise that lowered the rating of this book significantly. I will definitely be giving White another chance though, because debuts will always falter in some ways, but I did love her writing style.

XOXO Tia