Book #14: Paranormalcy (Whitney Book 1)

Title: Paranormalcy
Author: Kiersten White

What teenager doesn't feel misunderstood and different from everyone around her? In Evie's case, she really is different: after being tossed around the foster system for a few years, she's picked up by the IPCA (think Interpol for paranormals), who put her up in an apartment, homeschool her, and use her ability to see through a paranormal's glamor to the creepy thing underneath to help them find and catch vampires, werewolves and hags all around the world. She's never met anyone else with her ability, and isn't even exactly sure if she's human or not.

Then, paranormals, who are notoriously difficult to kill, start turning up dead all over the place. A teenage boy breaks into the IPCA and ends up imprisoned there (and Evie, of course digs him big time), and she meets the paranormal killer-- another girl who looks just like Evie and claims to share her soul. And then there's the problem of the fairies, specifically the one who says he's hers.

The most distinctive thing about Paranormalcy is Evie's voice (I wonder how this would translate to reading the book, but the audiobook reader was very expressive, very Buffy). In the beginning, Evie seemed like a lonely teenager who tried to fit in by aping the pop culture she saw in the outside world, but as she gained a greater understanding of the outside world, her love of all things pink became less important in the narrative.

I breezed through the book, finishing it in two days (it's about nine hours long, so that's a lot of listening) but I thought it was really fun. It wasn't perfect, and I think people might have some problems with the antagonists and the major struggle and the idea that teenagers can find true and sustaining and eternal love. Others might not like Evie much, but I liked both the story and the character. I hadn't heard any of the hype surrounding the book until after I was finished reading, so I didn't have high expectations going into the novel. I think White's debut shows that she has a good understanding of character, and I look forward to the next installment of Evie's story.