Werlin, Nancy: Impossible
Impossible
Writer: Nancy Werlin
Genre: YA/Modern Fantasy
Pages: 364
I'd never heard of this book until I saw it in the YA section of the store. It was facing out, and I started drooling over the cover. It's beautiful and intriguing, so of course I had to see what it was about. The premise got my attention, so I picked it up. We all know it doesn't take much for me to fall for a book when there's a gorgeous cover involved.
The premise: Lucy is seventeen when she learns that her birth mother isn't merely insane, but rather cursed. Rather, all the women in Lucy's family are cursed: they have to complete three seemingly impossible tasks, or they'll go mad upon their child's birth. And now, Lucy doesn't have much time before she falls into the same fate. All she's got are the cryptic lyrics of an old folk song, her foster parents, and her best friend Zach, and even with all of their help, it may not be enough.
Spoilers ahead, yo.
If I'd paid a little more attention to the blurb and the tags, I would've figured out this was a story about teenage pregnancy. I mean, it's really obvious, but I didn't notice. And when I started reading and figured it out, it didn't take long for me to figure out that said pregnancy would be the result of a rape. Surprisingly, as much as rape-in-fiction is a pet peeve of mine, this didn't piss me off. Mostly because of the style of prose and the unfolding of the story--it was hard to be engrossed enough in the story to, well, care that our heroine got raped, as horrible as it sounds.
I've not read, nor even heard of, Nancy Werlin, though it seems she's won all of these awards for her work. What I've gathered though is that she's a slight stranger to fantasy, even though one of her other book descriptions mentions an elf and another book description is clearly SF. But as I was reading, trying to figure out why this book didn't work for me, I kept going back to the fantastical element. And lots of other things, but mostly, the fantastical element.
The premise is actually really clever: Werlin bases her whole novel around the "Elfin Knight" version of "The Scarborough Fair," which outlines the story of a true love rejected, the subsequent curse, and the impossible tasks that must be completed for the curse to be broken. It makes sense that at the center of it all is a fairy, an elf to be exact, who in the real world, goes by the name of Padraig Seeley. Ha ha. Seeley. I get it. Spurned originally by a human woman named Fenella, he cursed her: requiring three tasks completed or she goes mad and becomes his consort forever. And it doesn't stop there: he gets her daughter, and that woman's daughter, and THAT woman's daughter, and so on and so forth until the task is completed.
It's a really great premise. I can't stress that enough.
But there's the whole GOOD versus EVIL thing going on. Everyone who's good is impossibly, perfectly good, and everyone who's bad (namely, Padraig), is impossibly, horribly bad. That kind of polarized characterization doesn't work for me and given the fact I saw this book marketed in the TEEN section, I feel it's not appropriate. I don't feel such black and white characterization is appropriate for ANY age group, unless you're really, really little, and that's not to say that it doesn't exist in even some adult fantasies, but still. This is a modern tale, you know? Make it realistic.
And that's the other trouble: realism. First you've got Padraig who's got the ability to pretty much charm anyone into giving him what he wants, which is lame, even though he's a fairy. He has no limits until the seamless shirt is made, and let's face it: that's lame. I don't care that he's essentially a devil, I want limitations, and I want a greater presence in the story if he's truly supposed to be such an adversary. Instead, he's annoying. It's not to say what he does isn't evil, because it IS, no doubt about that, but I never find him to be a truly horrifying character. And it makes me question the story: I wonder why the premise couldn't be altered with each daughter being given the chance to love HIM, and then if they fail, the curse goes into effect. Granted, how hard would be it be to spurn this guy given his inhuman beauty and his ability to manipulate anyone, but would've been preferable. Granted, it's not my story. If it'd been my story, I would've geared it towards adults in order to capitalize on the darkness and horror of the inherent story, but hey, it's not mine, so that's that.
There's also the syrupy, sickeningly sweet love story between Lucy and Zach, which is also, for the record, impossible. Not realistic in the slightest, though Werlin tries by using Lucy's doubts and fears, and while the two made me smile, I was still shaking my head with disbelief. I wanted the relationship and subsequent marriage to be MORE, to relate MORE to the curse somehow, to foil it, rather than just annoy Padraig. Sure, it's revealed that the curse couldn't be lifted with the woman working completely alone, and in the end, Lucy's and Zach's actions reveal what true love really means, which is not what our Elfin Knight believes, but still. I don't want to say LAME, but I want to say LAME. Does that make sense?
I think I wanted the three (technically four) impossible tasks to not be quite so literal, so that Lucy's and Zach's relationship and marriage would seriously effect the plot. As it stands, it effected the future if Lucy DID go mad (her daughter would grow up with a father and wouldn't get stuck in the foster system), but let's face it, the rest of story could've taken place just the same even if Lucy and Zach hadn't gotten married.
My Rating
Give it Away: I'm not really sure what I feel about this book. Granted, Lucy is a strong, capable heroine, but the head-hopping, slippery POV undermines that, because we're not grounded in Lucy's experience. And the love story between Lucy and Zach IS sweet, but again, it's impossible. Pun intended. :) The truth is, despite the really fantastic premise, it wasn't the story I was hoping for, so I was really disappointed in it. It's a fast read, which is a good thing, but I'm not sold this is a book meant to be marketed to the TEEN audience. Maybe slightly younger, due to the stark hues of black and white in terms of good and evil, but in the end, what's the message the book's trying to tell? That true love isn't about all the impossible things you do for your loved one (which is rather tacked on at the end of the climax)? That might be the message, but it seems to be that with a story like this, especially when you consider the teen pregnancy and teen marriage, there'd be more to the message than that.
Next up:
Red by Jordan Summers