Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
Author: Lish McBride
Published: 10/12/10
Publisher: Henry Holt

Blurb (GR): Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he’s doing all right—until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.

Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he’s a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . or else.

With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin?

Review:
I guarantee you, if you read this book: (1) You will laugh; and (2) You will want to eat some waffles. I have eaten three waffles in the past two days just because of this book. (Fine, it was also because someone else made waffle batter and it takes a minute to make once all that work is done:)) But in all seriousness, this book is buckets of awesome. Samhain Corvus LaCroix (Sam) is a Seattle college dropout working at a fast food restaurant with a few of his friends and generally slacking it up in his off-time. After an unfortunate potato hockey accident behind the restaurant, Sam comes into contact with an intimidating man who recognizes Sam for what he is—a necromancer. Clueless, Sam is faced with an ultimatum before he even comes to terms with his dead-controlling ways. Craziness ensues.

Author Lish McBride uses short song snippets as the titles for the chapters and they are fabulous. I think my heart just about exploded when I got to the one entitled “Make A Little Birdhouse in Your Soul.” (My first concert besides Raffi and the parentally-enforced-you-must-love-being-Irish Chieftains concerts I went to with the family was They Might Be Giants, which I think is a totally respectable first concert, no?) Anyway, I loved every single one of them. It might be a little annoying to some people but I thought it went well with the overall campiness. Crowinator got there before me but she is dead-on that this book reminded me of a mixture of Buffy’s fun and the snarkiness of Dead Like Me. Sam very much reminded me of George from Dead Like Me—a sarcastic yet compassionate slacker working at a just-for-the-money job, only Sam is far nicer than George ever was. And he has his kickass friends, one of whom is a head in a bag. Yeah, you read that right. A head. In a bowling bag. The sense of humor is dead-on and the story was fun in the same way that Paranormalcy was. It felt fresh in a genre where originality can be hard to come by.

This book has it all, and I almost feel like Stefon from SNL could do a wonderful recap of what this book has to offer: Crazy garden gnomes that want to kill you, a talking cat that is really a dragon, sexy werewolves, a head in a bowling bag, medicine bags that make people invisible to supernatural radar, a Catholic schoolgirl harbringer that loves waffles, sex in a cage, and ZOMBIES. You get the idea. The pacing is quick but unhurried and the story arc is complete at the end yet leaves itself open to future books that I really hope will exist despite a lack of parenthetical series markers on Goodreads. It would be a huge shame if this was a standalone.

4/5 stars

Blurb (GR): Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.

But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

So much for normal.

Review: When you look at the cover of this book, what do you think it is about? A blond teenage girl is wearing a prom dress in a field of pussy willows or wheat or something equally nonsensical. Here's a new cover that crushes the actual book cover on the relevancy front (though regrettably not in terms of artistic merit):

I mean, I went into this thinking it was going to be another YA paranormal romance and IT ISN'T. It is decidedly fun YA urban fantasy book. (jacket copy reading is for losers) It has a pretty kickass heroine, mermaids, werewolves (that may or MAY look like an Ewok in my picture), people made of water, people made of fire, vampires, trolls, nymphs, faeries, and everything else you can think of. Why would you trick your audience with the wheat field?

I digress. Evie has lived in the Center for as long as she can remember. She was picked up at the age of three and put through the foster system until the IPCA (Int'l Paranormal Containment Agency) realizes that she can see through glamours produced by all paranormals. As a vital asset, she goes out to bag-and-tag all sorts of beings for the agency. Things get a little dicey when all sorts of paranormals are being killed, the Center is invaded, and some faeries are being total douchebags. Speaking of faeries, Reth sounds like a noise someone makes when they are choking on something. Reeeth...Reeeeth...I'm retching here, it's too bad you can't hear it.

I felt like the last third or so wasn't as strong as the rest of the book. The story moved at a relaxed but appealing pace until a total break occurred and then it was out of whack.  Fun, sure, but I was perfectly happy with the natural pacing of the relationship--I was glad it wasn't going into trite YA foreverlove territory, and it still didn't...but it did get a little cheesified.

Kiersten White has a great sense of humor. Her characters were funny and fans of Buffy will definitely find something appealing about the friendships and storyline. I'm excited to see where it goes in the second book--Supernaturally.(which, incidentally, has Evie in a red dress and with some red (and probably completely irrelevant) flowers on the cover)

4/5 stars

Supernaturally
Author: Kiersten White
Publication Date: 7/26/11
Publisher: HarperTeen

Blurb (GR): Evie finally has the normal life she’s always longed for. But she’s shocked to discover that being ordinary can be . . . kind of boring. Just when Evie starts to long for her days at the International Paranormal Containment Agency, she’s given a chance to work for them again. Desperate for a break from all the normalcy, she agrees. But as one disastrous mission leads to another, Evie starts to wonder if she made the right choice. And when Evie’s faerie ex-boyfriend Reth appears with devastating revelations about her past, she discovers that there’s a battle brewing between the faerie courts that could throw the whole supernatural world into chaos. The prize in question? Evie herself.

So much for normal.

Review: 
Hello, and welcome to Irrelevant Book Cover Redo, Part Deux! (Part Un was  my Paranormalcy review) In this second installment of the Paranormalcy series, Kiersten White picks back up with Evie and the gang after the gaggle of events that occurred at the end of book one. Look at the cover. Okay, now read this the following paragraph where I set up the plot for you…

Evie is living out in the real world after Lend’s father falsifies papers for her. She is living the dream—er, well her dream, to attend a real high school while her boyfriend is away at college. But things are not fine and dandy in the paranormal world (are they ever?) and there is an unexplained influx of paranormals in town, some of the elementals are disappearing, Evie’s sister is appearing in her dreams, and a weird boy who can navigate the Faerie Paths shows up out of seemingly nowhere. What’s a girl to do?

Alright, so it makes perfect sense to have a girl in a red dress  prancing in some poppies (or daisies), right? NOT. To the left, you'll see my cover redo of questionable quality.

I mean, right? I didn’t even include everything! (in answers to your already budding questions: the guy is doing a flip off the bed, the gnome is a chef, Evie is wearing her gym suit because she seems to always be in gym class, the cloud is alive, the vampire is on her laptop, and the doorway is open to Faerie) Phew!  The plot of this edition is just as fun and full of interesting events as the last one, but I felt like it was not as successfully sewn up.  So many storylines and characters are added in and I do not feel like I got to spend enough time with any of them. The Lend/Evie relationship fell flat to me, which was a huge disappointment as I was rooting for them in Paranormalcy. Several of their problems were Evie’s fault (well, all of them) and those of you who are worried about her becoming TSTL—it’s not a complete transition but she certainly makes several ridiculous decisions in this installment. (almost all of them involve not communicating effectively with those she is closest to. Frustration City, population ME.)

My other largest gripe came from Jack’s character. He is the flipping boy in the new cover. He seems to always be effing flipping all over the place and frankly, if I was Evie, I would’ve done a super dramatic eyeroll at him. (at the very least) He was beyond immature, which was weird considering the writing was leading him to be Lend’s competition and Evie’s friends found him attractive. Um, not really.  I keep thinking to myself that I might not be the target audience for this book but the thing is—I kind of am. I read buttloads of YA books.  Kiersten White impressed me with her sense of humor, fun storyline, and consistent writing in Paranormalcy. She still entertained me in this one but just not to the same extent.
 
I will definitely continue to read this series.  Several new storylines and characters are introduced in this one and the anticipation builds throughout the narrative. I am really excited to see where the plot threads that felt irrelevant to THIS book will lead in the NEXT book—because obviously that is why they are there. A few people have given this 5 stars so maybe you’ll fall on that side. But if any of the same things that bother me irk you, you’ll probably fall with me around  6-7 out of 10.

3/5 stars