Saturday, November 6, 2010

Review: Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin

Title: Extraordinary
Author: Nancy Werlin
Release Date: September 7th, 2010
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 393
Age: Young Adult
Phoebe finds herself drawn to Mallory, the strange and secretive new kid in school, and the two girls become as close as sisters . . . until Mallory's magnetic older brother, Ryland, shows up during their junior year. Ryland has an immediate, exciting hold on Phoebe, but a dangerous hold, for she begins to question her feelings about her best friend and, worse, about herself. Soon she'll discover the shocking truth about Ryland and Mallory: that these two are visitors from the faerie realm who have come to collect on an age-old debt. Generations ago, the faerie queen promised Pheobe's ancestor five extraordinary sons in exchange for the sacrifice of one ordinary female heir. But in hundreds of years there hasn't been a single ordinary girl in the family, and now the faeries are dying. Could Phoebe be the first ordinary one? Could she save the faeries, or is she special enough to save herself?

A human girl, fairies, and a debt...

Phoebe is a rich girl. She has a sweet heart, and when she sees the new girl at school, wearing the wrong clothes and people being mean to her, she decides she's going to change that.

Mallory is the new girl. Except, she isn't really human. She's a fairy, sent to find Phoebe. But when she met her, she can't seem to do her work. They become good friends, and after a couple of years, the fairies can't wait anymore for Mallory. So they send another fairy, and that's when the problems begin...

I wished Phoebe would have been different. She was very insecure and it was extremely easy to manipulate her. I know she's supposed to be young, but still. She always compare herself with her mother or her best friend, and she believes she isn't special. Sometimes, it was boring to read her. I always expected for her to change, because she sometimes appeared to be brave, but then she decided to be weak again, accepting and believing everything people said about them.

The other characters were kind of plain. Her parents were loving but always at the background, and the fairies were described, but you really didn't know anything else. I wanted to know more of them, like their personalities or the world they lived.

But, the writing was perfect. It was light and easy to read, and it has that thing that makes you keep reading. Besides, I loved the conversations between the fairies, because it was interesting to see the problem from their perspective. (And the pages were beautiful, decorated with leaves).

Also, the plot was interesting. The author creates a story using reality and combining it with fantasy, and it would have been perfect if the protagonist would have been stronger...She just accepted her fate, and although everything worked out well, she didn't leave me that feeling of being better.

Overall, I did enjoyed reading it even when I didn't liked the characters. I read it very fast, because I wanted to know why the fairies needed Phoebe. So, I recommend it if you like fairies and you aren't looking for a fast paced book with strong protagonists.



More about this book at www.nancywerlin.com - Goodreads - Amazon.

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