Sunday, July 31, 2011

Review: Supernaturally, by Kiersten White

#7 And just plain tired.

Finals week is here, and after my first finals all-nighter I completely crashed! But I am back, sending out one more review before I hit the books again!

Anyway, a few months ago I read Paranormalcy by Kiersten White.

I loved it. It was fun, had a quick, interesting plot line, and Evie (the main character) was one of the best heroines that I had read in a while. Aside from a strong penchant for anything pink, she is funny, tough, a force to be reckoned with. Simply put, she is easily one of my favorite leading ladies in literature right now. [Goodreads info]

*Sigh.* Such a beautiful cover. Long story short, it was excellent and I give it a solid 4/5 stars.

I was so excited that I had such a short amount of time to wait for the sequel (think: Divergent, or Enclave--sequels coming out in 2012....devastating). So as soon as I could, I got my hands on a copy of Supernaturally, the equally-stunning subsequent novel in this trilogy. Let's just take a look at that cover.
Supernaturally:
-pages: 336
-rating: 3.5/5

To me, reviewing sequels seems particularly tricky, because I don't want to give anything away to anyone who hasn't yet read it. So let me just try to navigate those waters.

Supernaturally picks up some time after Paranormalcy has ended. We find Evie--now known as Evie Green for legal purposes--living a normal life. Well, it's as normal as life could be for someone with...talents...such as hers. She's finally doing the thing she most desired--attending high school! However compared to the sensationalized view of high school she has eaten up from her favorite tv show, Easton Heights, real life isn't quite living up to her expectations.

Lend is away at college, and she only sees him on weekends. Her PE teacher seems to have it out for her. Someone she shouldn't ever see again has taken to visiting her in her dreams. And then on top of all that, applying to Georgetown, working in the diner, and trying to enjoy life among "normal" people, one of the last people she ever expects to see suddenly pops back into her life. And she brings company.

Suddenly, Evie is back on missions for the IPCA. Strange things keep happening to her on said missions, paranormals are acting strange whenever they see her, and Lend hasn't seen his mom for months. Then there's the ever-present reminder of what, exactly, Evie is hiding from Lend.
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Evie learns a lot about herself in this book. But besides the back story, relationship drama (needs moar Lend), and questioning her own mortality, not much else happens. White introduced a lot of potentially interesting plot twists here and there, but since none of them are resolved, those are obviously meant for Endlessly, the last book in this trilogy, to be released God-knows-when (really, 2012...).

For me, anyway, the main plot line seems like space filler--something introduced to get the readers through the second book and waiting for the third. I couldn't relate to the characters as well as I could in the first book. Perhaps it was the decidedly absent Lend, the lack of kookiness we got to see through Evie's former life with the IPCA, or even the introduction of a new character who just didn't quite evoke feelings from me. I don't know.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I think Supernaturally just lacked that certain...sparkle... that just emanated from Parnormalcy. Perhaps you'll think otherwise. I hope you'll think otherwise.

All that being said, I will still definitely read Endlessly whenever it is released next year, because as previously mentioned--I'm sure we'll see resolutions for a few of the story lines introduced in this sequel.

Anyway, this study break is finished! I'm going back to hit the books, and then post-final-exam on Tuesday I'll post a review for the book that I just COULDN'T PUT DOWN while trying to study for my first test :)

What sequels are you most anxiously waiting for?

3 comments:

  1. Seems to be like an interesting book! But I also really really like the psychological locations of a details too. Can't keep out to try this one.

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