Impossible

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

The song 'Scarborough Fair' takes the starring role as a curse.  Lucy is a regular girl living with her foster parents.  Her life takes a dramatic change;  her crazy birthmother shows up just as Lucy is heading off to her first prom, a strange and enchanting man shows up for dinner at her parent's house, her long time neighbor/best friend Zach, moves into her house, and her prom date becomes posessed and rapes her.
Lucy realizes that the song 'Scarborough Fair' isn't just a song her looney mother sang because she was nuts.  It is a curse, a riddle, and a warning.  Lucy has to find a way to accomplish all of the tasks in the riddle, in order to break the curse put on all of the women in her family by an Elfin Knight.  She only has a short amount of time to break the curse before she becomes crazy......as all of the women before her have.

Lucy was easily likeable.  She is quiet and determined and makes the strange plot easy to believe.  Lucy and Zach quickly fall in love despite their ages.  Zach, along with Lucy's very supportive parents, help her unwind the riddle that will soon take her mind.  I didn't really end up liking Soledad (Lucy's foster mother) very much.  I think somehow I took her to be a liberal, granola......and she never sat well with me most of the time.

Rating 4  Loved Lucy and Zach together.  I loved the magical quality and unique way that the song was turned into a curse.  The characters where a great group that I became attached to.

Rating PG 13   Rape, teen pregnancy, information about abortion, evil magic used to cause a mental disorder and to coerce someone into being a sex slave.

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments Book Three)

City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

In the conclusion of The Mortal Instruments series, Valentine is ready to take down the wards protecting the shadow hunter city of Alicante. Then he will allow it to be run over by demons in order to force the shadow hunter Clave to agree to his wishes. Valentine wants to create new shadow hunters and destroy the old ones. For this he needs the three mortal instruments.
Jace goes to Alicante with his family to the meeting of he Clave. The Clave has convened to determine how to fight Valentine.
Clary sneaks into the secret city with Luke. She is there to find the warlock that can help her wake her mother from the magically induced coma.
All Hell breaks loose literally and many are wounded and killed as Valentines demon army comes to destroy the city and its inhabitants.
Jace and Clary are able to uncover the secrets that will undo Valentine.

I am still loving this series. Also.....I am so proud of myself!! I actually figured out the twist before it was revealed. My distrust proved to be true. I am so happy. Even though the book ended in a way that I was truly pleased with, I felt like the character romance that I was rooting for had fizzled by the end. Lots of drama leading up to ..........eh okay. It left me wanting.

Rating 5 Yes I had a problem with the ending for Jace and Clary. However I do like that the rest of the events were wrapped up in a way that didn't go ON and ON and ON. Concise is nice. Still super funny and truly entertaining.
Rating PG 13 Death, destruction, demons, language, some heated romance.

City of Bones The Mortal Instruments Book One

The City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Fifteen year old Clary takes her best friend Simon to an all ages club in New York City. That is the night she finds out she can see demons, downworlders, and demon slayers.
It's no coincidence that Clary is able to see the slaying of a demon that night. She can also see a group of teenage demon slayers. Within days Clary finds out that these people have more to do with her life than any of the ordinary things she was part of before. Clary's mother Jocelyn is attacked and kidnapped in their brownstone home. Jace, one of the demon slayers finds Clary just as she is being attacked by and killing a Ravener.
Jace and Clary form an immediate and intense bond. Simon and Jace both have feelings for Clary. These feelings and the fact that Clary's mother may have been a shadowhunter before Clary's birth, have Clary's life doing a 180 that ends in a twisted sick manner.
The City of Bones is dark and super funny. One thing that is always missing from Twilight (the funny!!!). The teens are sharp and witty. The love and danger intense. I am excited to pick up City of Ashes (the next book in The Mortal Instruments series.)
Rating 5
Rating PG to PG13 some language and sexual tension, homosexuality

Wings

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Laurel Sewell is fifteen and just beginning high school. For years she has lived in a small cabin at the edge of the woods with her parents. Laurel was home schooled there. Times are changing for Laurel and far more than she first suspects. Her family has now moved to a larger town where her father runs a book store and Laurel is entering public school.

Despite feeling out of place Laurel makes friends with Chelsea and David. David seems to be interested past the point of friendship and Laurel may be also. Just as she should be finding first love and well on her way through puberty, Laurel discovers the reason she has always felt different. She is a faerie. As her only close friend, David is the one she turns to. David and Laurel search for scientific proof of the amazing turn of events.

At the same time Laurel's mother is about to sell the family land that Laurel was raised on. When the new buyer comes to make an offer, Laurel has the sick feeling that he is not a good man. While helping her parents prepare their cabin and land for sale, Laurel takes off into the woods. As she sits playing her mother's guitar, Laurel is approached by a striking young man with the features of a model and oddly colored hair. His name is Tamani and he is able to answer all of the questions Laurel has about herself.

Laurel is quickly stuck between a sweet and tender relationship with David, a human boy, and a soul shaking, breath taking love with the faerie Tamani. Her feelings for both are mixed as they help her defeat the trolls that are ready to take over her family land. The land that she has learned possesses the gate to her old faerie world.

Wings is the first in a four book series and is also being made into a Disney movie. With the wave of fantasy literature now hitting the YA market, Wings is as fresh as the blossom on a faerie.

The love between Laurel and each boy is compelling. I want her to be able to have both! The faerie side of the story is bright and interesting, much less dark than recent YA books I have read.

Rating 5 Fresh take on fantasy/young love.

Rating PG Trolls come to a violent end. The romantic parts are clean.