Wednesday, April 20, 2011

review: Impossible by Nancy Werlin

pub date: September 2008
publisher: Dial
pages: 384
appeals: fairies, curse, romance, young adult, fantasy, family
content: there is some mild talk about sex

thoughts:
This is my third Nancy Werlin this year, and like the first two, I really enjoyed it. There isn't beautiful language or fantastic descriptions, but Werlin has a way of telling a straight forward story that really grabs my attention.

Though familiar with the song Scarborough Fair, I had never listened to the words before. They are rather disturbing. Werlin took the song and created this plausible story to go along with the lyrics.

I loved the way Lucy and her family figure out how to accomplish such impossible tasks in such a short amount of time. It was exciting and suspenseful.

It was easy for me to accept the curse and the fantasy elements of the story. It wasn't as easy for me to accept the romance bit. I liked Zach a lot. I liked Lucy and Zach's platonic relationship at the beginning of the novel. Their romantic relationship was abrupt and developed super fast. It kind of took me out of the story for a bit, but overall I thought it worked well and I really did like them as a couple.

summary:
Inspired by the ballad “Scarborough Fair,” this riveting novel combines suspense, fantasy, and romance for an intensely page-turning and masterfully original tale.

Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that the women of her family have been cursed through the generations, forced to attempt three seemingly impossible tasks or to fall into madness upon their child’s birth. But Lucy is the first girl who won’t be alone as she tackles the list. She has her fiercely protective foster parents and her childhood friend Zach beside her. Do they have love and strength enough to overcome an age-old evil?

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