Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Summary:
Weird as it is working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, 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 shape-shifter, 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 soon realizes that there may be a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths. Not only that, but she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

So much for normal. (from GoodReads)

Review:
When I picked up Paranormalcy, I was expecting more of a dark fantasy. The cover, while gorgeous, has darker colors, so I just assumed the book would be similar to Nightshade in tone. Paranormalcy was actually much lighter, closer to You Are So Undead to Me. Either way, I still really enjoyed this fantasy novel!

Like I said, Paranormalcy was pretty light and actually very funny. Evie has a great voice and she sounds just any teenager. Her dialogue was always sharp and her internal commentary always had me laughing. I liked how she would go off to capture rogue vampires and werewolves, and then come back and try to find a cute dress to wear. I actually sympathized with Evie a lot, because all she wanted was to be normal and go to school and have friends. Since she's an orphan, she lives at the International Paranormal Containment Agency's headquarters, so she doesn't exactly lead a normal life.

That changes when she meets Lend, a paranormal who also goes to high school and acts like any teenager. Evie and Lend start spending time together and I really enjoyed their relationship. They started out as friends and then their friendship evolved into something more romantic.

The only thing that I would change is that I think the character of Reth should be explained better. Supposedly he and Evie had a fling, but I was just really creeped out by him most of the time, especially because he is a conniving faerie.

As stated before, I really enjoyed the lightness and hilarity of Paranormalcy. It had an interesting concept and fun characters, which made for a great read.

Rating: 8 out of 10.
FTC: borrowed from library.

2010/HarperTeen/352 pages.