Extraordinary {ARC review} * *

Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin

Sep 7, 2010

- fantasy, YA -

reviewed by Tara SG

received for review via Book It Forward ARC Tours

Links

Author’s Website : www.nancywerlin.com

Amazon : pre-order hardcover

Add To Your GoodReads TBR List

This book in 6 words:

possible interesting story dragged too much

Why did I read this? And am I glad I did?

I first came across Extraordinary in one of Spellbound by Books’ WoW posts. I thought the plot sounded intriguing and when given the opportunity to review the book, I took it. I am not glad I did. I think this had a lot of potential and just fell flat. There was far too much physical/emotional abuse for me to handle. The majority of the book is spent watching other people completely tear down the main character and the ending did not (in my opinion) make up for this. I’ve heard good things about other books by the author so I’m hoping this was just one miss.

Brief Summary

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?

-via GoodReads.com

Plot/Pacing/Writing Style

I think this could have been really good. The idea of a promise made by a long ago relative coming back to haunt his current descent mixed with some fairies had potential. I did not, however, like how everything was handled. The beginning of the story was quite good and I loved watching Mallory and Pheobe’s relationship grow. I just couldn’t handle watching her later tear her to pieces. There is some really terrible things said and done to our main character (not all by Mallory) that I just got sick of reading – and I don’t mean this in a “the author really touched me emotionally and it hurt” kind of way.

The pacing was a little off. I found myself skimming a lot. The ending was VERY drawn out and anti-climatic. I did, however, like the bits and pieces with the fairy queen included between some of the chapters.

Characters

Pheobe starts out as someone I could have really liked. I understand that we’re supposed to watch her be broken down and that is part of the story. However, I think she let it happen far too easily for it to be realistic and SPOILER ALERT I think she was FAR to forgiving in the end.

I actually liked Mallory a lot more than Pheobe. I felt like she was in a very tough position and felt that her actions and responses were more real. I think I would have liked the story more if it would have been about her.

I hated Ryland and was supposed to. I will say that the author did a wonderful job at creating this villain. He made my skin crawl.

While Ben could have been a good love interest, there really wasn’t much there. I kept wanting to see more of him.

Recommendations

If you have read and like other books by Nancy Werlin, maybe see if you can get this from your library.

Going Deeper – slight spoilers

Pheobe gets extremely offended when Mallory tells a fairy tale about Pheobe’s ancestor falling in love and wanting to praise the fairy queen. She says that he was a good Jew and that it was offensive to imply otherwise. She brings this up multiple times. At one point later in the book Pheobe sees the sick fairies and says they look like concentration camp victims. I consider that far more offensive. Yes, they were sick, but they were not being put through the torture that was a concentration camp. I’m not sure why this bugged me so much, but it did.