Review: Paranormalcy - Kiersten White

Evie's always thought of herself as normal.  Sure, her best friend is a mermaid, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she's falling for a shapeshifter and she's the only person who can see through paranormals' glamours, but still.  Normal.

Only now paranormals are dying and Evie's dreams are filled with haunting voices and mysterious prophecies.  She begins to suspect that there is a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths, and even worse, that she is at the centre of a dark prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

Paranormalcy Series:
Paranormalcy
Supernaturally
Endlessly

Check out Kiersten White's website for more information

Review:
Evie was abandoned by her mother as a baby and spent her early years growing up in foster care before she was discovered by the IPCA (International Paranormal Containment Agency).  Evie has the rare ability to see through the glamours that paranormals use to hide their real identity from the human population making her an asset to the agency who tag paranormals to make sure they aren't breaking any rules.  Evie's life is anything but normal, she has grown up on the agency base with a mermaid for a best friend, her ex boyfriend is a faerie and she has a crush on a shapeshifter, but she wants to be like any other teenage girl.  Evie dreams of going to school and living in the normal human world but when someone (or something) starts murdering paranormals her dream seems to be getting further and further away from her.  After discovering that she is at the centre of a disturbing prophecy Evie's life will never be the same again.

I've been looking forward to reading Paranormalcy since I first saw it released in the US so I was really excited when I was sent a copy for review.  I was really impressed with this debut from Kiersten White and can't wait to see what she does with the rest of the series.

I liked Evie's voice from the very first page, she is such a fun character with her love of all things pink (including her taser!) and a snarky attitude that had me laughing out loud.  I found it nearly impossible to put the book down because I wanted to see what kind of trouble she'd manage to get herself into next.  I loved the relationship between Evie and her best friend Lish, they may not have much in common (after all Lish is a mermaid unable to leave her tank on the base) but they obviously cared for each other.  Someone else that Evie has a lot of contact with is her boss Raquel who is also a mother figure to her, I'm sure mothers and daughters everywhere will see themselves in the interactions between the two of them - they have their arguments but deep down they both love each other.

Kiersten White has created a detailed world with lots of unique and interesting supernatural characters, from those we see quite regularly in paranormal stories right through to ones I've not come across before.  I liked the way we were introduced to the history and mythology for all of the different species and I was glad that the author managed to put her own slant on even the most common creatures.  One of my favorite characters after Evie was Lend (the shapeshifter Evie has a crush on).  I can't go into too much detail here as I don't want to give any spoilers so I'll just say he wasn't at all what I was expecting and I loved him all the more because of it.  I really enjoyed the developing relationship between Evie and Lend but I was pleased that this didn't overshadow the rest of the story.  I think Paranormalcy had the perfect blend of action and romance.

Alongside the characters you will love there are also some great characters that you will love to hate.  The faeries (Reth in particular) are experts at manipulation and manage to turn everything around to suit themselves.  I love the fact that you're kept guessing about who can be trusted and who the real bad guys are right until nearly the end of the book.

Paranormalcy is a fun read and one which completely pulled me into Evie's world.  I wanted to spend more time with these characters so can't wait to read the next book in the series.  If you're a fan of YA urban fantasy and are looking for something a bit different to all the books we've seen recently I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

Source: Received from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review

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