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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
It is a beautiful story of a girl trying to save herself and the women in her family from a curse that is handed down through the generations. Add in romance and suspense, and this battle between good and evil spins a wonderful tale.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair? I've always thought it a lovely song. And yes, I've heard varying verses; who hasn't when it comes to folk music? But the thought of it as an actual clue to unraveling a curse...never even crossed my mind. Lucinda is a lovely and lonely young girl - constantly worried about being embarrassed by her lunatic mother. She never dreamed that her mother's rantings were valid warnings, and that the song she sings constantly is the warning refrain, meant to teach Lucinda what she needs to know before she too becomes subject to the curse. But of course, I'm a sucker for Irish folklore.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The premise is really strong and interesting. I love the mystical elements present here, and the reference to old fairy tales and stories. It's a sweet book, and also a really unique one.
Oh, I loved this book. It's thrilling, mysterious, romantic, and impossible to put down. I kept wanting to read it while I should be working. The summary sounds a little weird, but trust me, it's fabulous!
I have to say, I absolutely despised this book. It took me three years to make it through the book. I felt like there was no world building and suddenly she was pregnant.
Lucy seemed entirely unrealistic. She accept the fact that she's having the baby despite the fact that she is aware she will definitely go mad. Why?
Don't even get me started on her and Zach's romance. A college student with his whole life ahead of him decides to start up a relationship with his childhood friend now that she is pregnant at seventeen and about to go insane and then decides to marry her. And his parents let him. I'm sorry, can someone please explain this to me. Find me a guy like this in the real world.
Also the tasks set out for her are utterly ridiculous. I'm unsure if they are part of the lyrics to 'Scarborough Fair'. I just didn't feel like this was the haunting novel I was promised.
Lucy seemed entirely unrealistic. She accept the fact that she's having the baby despite the fact that she is aware she will definitely go mad. Why?
Don't even get me started on her and Zach's romance. A college student with his whole life ahead of him decides to start up a relationship with his childhood friend now that she is pregnant at seventeen and about to go insane and then decides to marry her. And his parents let him. I'm sorry, can someone please explain this to me. Find me a guy like this in the real world.
Also the tasks set out for her are utterly ridiculous. I'm unsure if they are part of the lyrics to 'Scarborough Fair'. I just didn't feel like this was the haunting novel I was promised.
Before this I've previously read [b:Extraordinary|7456034|Extraordinary|Nancy Werlin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1341193984s/7456034.jpg|9504970] Extraordinary before this book, so I've got a good idea about how Werlin would incorporate the fantasy elements into the novel. As usual Werlin's created a pretty captivating story at the heart of the novel, although I haven't heard of the "Scarborough Fair" before this novel. Essentially the folk ballad tells of three impossible tasks that a woman has to accomplish. Impossible uses the tasks mentioned in the ballad to refer to the tasks that the Scarborough women have to do in order to escape a curse placed on the family.
The Scarborough women are destined to become pregnant at eighteen and to have a daughter. Each time after the daughter is born, her mother appears to go insane after the birth. All these started because Fenella Scarborough, their ancestress, had rejected a elf lord of some sort. The lord, furious at the rejection, placed the curse over the family and all the women in her family have succumbed to it. Lucy is the latest in the family and she's just about to turn eighteen. However her situation is rather different because she's got support from her adopted family as well as Zac, the boy next door who's known her for just about forever.
I was really interested in finding out Lucy was going to complete the tasks because at first glance, the tasks really seemed (for a lack of a better word) impossible. The first chapter hooked me right in, with Lucy discovering her birth-mother's (Miranda's) letter but being too young to understand what the letter means. The next chapters are all about Lucy at seventeen, wanting to go to prom and helping to deal with her friend's boy troubles. Things change later on when Zach returns and a stranger comes to their town. That's when things get really interesting and everything starts to happen...
One of the elements that I really enjoyed were the family dynamics between Lucy and her foster parents, Soledad and Leo. I loved the way they supported her even though they didn't always agree with her decisions and how they just cared for her. Soledad, especially, shone. She's the best foster mother ever and I liked hearing about the relationship between Miranda and Soledad as well. The descriptions about the methodological way their family decided to approach the curse was cool too and I liked how everyone chipped in to help figure out how to complete the tasks.
HOWEVER, there were some major problems with the book that marred the good parts of the novel. A BIG issue was how I wasn't comfortable with using rape as a plot device. Pradraig Seeley's curse is such that the women in the family would get pregnant but it really said nothing at all about rape. The romance in the book seemed rather odd and ill-fitting as well. I get that Zach Greenfield is a good guy and that he's willing to do the upright thing and marry Lucy and all. But honestly a teen pregnancy and marriage seems a lot for a book to squeeze in and it really stretches the imagination to believe that all that would happen in the course of nine months. There was also a throwaway line that bothered me about how Lucy's gynaecologist was conservative and was pleased when he heard that she was married--what was up with that? Why did Werlin even add that in? It seemed so strange.
On the whole I would say that I did find the book to be compelling, although the ending was too pat and not all that satisfying. However the weird problems (as mentioned earlier) really stuck out and left me not knowing what the heck I was supposed to feel.
The Scarborough women are destined to become pregnant at eighteen and to have a daughter. Each time after the daughter is born, her mother appears to go insane after the birth. All these started because Fenella Scarborough, their ancestress, had rejected a elf lord of some sort. The lord, furious at the rejection, placed the curse over the family and all the women in her family have succumbed to it. Lucy is the latest in the family and she's just about to turn eighteen. However her situation is rather different because she's got support from her adopted family as well as Zac, the boy next door who's known her for just about forever.
I was really interested in finding out Lucy was going to complete the tasks because at first glance, the tasks really seemed (for a lack of a better word) impossible. The first chapter hooked me right in, with Lucy discovering her birth-mother's (Miranda's) letter but being too young to understand what the letter means. The next chapters are all about Lucy at seventeen, wanting to go to prom and helping to deal with her friend's boy troubles. Things change later on when Zach returns and a stranger comes to their town. That's when things get really interesting and everything starts to happen...
One of the elements that I really enjoyed were the family dynamics between Lucy and her foster parents, Soledad and Leo. I loved the way they supported her even though they didn't always agree with her decisions and how they just cared for her. Soledad, especially, shone. She's the best foster mother ever and I liked hearing about the relationship between Miranda and Soledad as well. The descriptions about the methodological way their family decided to approach the curse was cool too and I liked how everyone chipped in to help figure out how to complete the tasks.
HOWEVER, there were some major problems with the book that marred the good parts of the novel. A BIG issue was how I wasn't comfortable with using rape as a plot device. Pradraig Seeley's curse is such that the women in the family would get pregnant but it really said nothing at all about rape. The romance in the book seemed rather odd and ill-fitting as well. I get that Zach Greenfield is a good guy and that he's willing to do the upright thing and marry Lucy and all. But honestly a teen pregnancy and marriage seems a lot for a book to squeeze in and it really stretches the imagination to believe that all that would happen in the course of nine months. There was also a throwaway line that bothered me about how Lucy's gynaecologist was conservative and was pleased when he heard that she was married--what was up with that? Why did Werlin even add that in? It seemed so strange.
On the whole I would say that I did find the book to be compelling, although the ending was too pat and not all that satisfying. However the weird problems (as mentioned earlier) really stuck out and left me not knowing what the heck I was supposed to feel.
Inspired by the Medieval ballad “Scarborough Fair,” Impossible is a fantastical story about a rape, a family curse, a legacy of insanity, and a high school junior’s pregnancy. The student in question is smart, spunky Lucy Scarborough who so far has led a charmed life. She does well in school, has plenty of friends, and two wonderful adoptive parents. Okay, so there is one problem: occasionally Lucy’s crazy bag-lady birth mother, Miranda, will show up at her school or her adoptive family’s house and start flinging trash, but aside from that, everything is perfect.
Then Lucy goes to her junior prom with Gray Spencer, a sweet, nerdy band geek who passes the wary approval of her over-protective guardians. But after the dance, something strange happens. Something she can’t quite explain. As Lucy and her date are leaving for the after-party, Gray undergoes a sudden, violent personality change, and rapes her. Seeming to come to his senses, he then flees and fatally crashes his car only a few miles from the scene of the crime.
Weeks after these bizarre events, Lucy realizes she’s pregnant, and decides to keep the baby in a tribute to her own birth mother’s decision to keep her. A few months later, Lucy discovers her mother’s old diary and learns a shocking truth: an ancient curse has affected the female members of her family for generations. Apparently her ancestress, Fenella, rejected the sexual advances of a supernatural being (the Elfin Knight) and caused him to curse her. Because of this, each woman of her line is doomed to fall pregnant by 17, and go mad shortly after giving birth to a daughter. The only way to avoid such a fate, Miranda writes, is to fulfill the Elfin Knight’s three impossible demands: she must sew a shirt without any seam or needlework, find an acre of land between the ocean and the shoreline, and then sow the entire acre with a single kernel of corn, using a goat’s horn as a plow. Together, with the support of her adoptive parents and her childhood best friend, Zach, Lucy sets off to solve the tasks before it’s too late.
Impossible is a novel with a unique premise and loads of potential, but it is not a very good story. Its key problem lies in its faulty execution, and the fact that Lucy Scarborough’s real-world problems are resolved with relative fairy tale ease. Lucy loses her virginity through rape? Not to worry. Fortunately for her, she has mental powers of impermeability against the long-term trauma of sexual assault. What about the little matter of Lucy going nuts and leaving her newborn defenseless and alone? No problem. She and Zach fall in love and get married at age 18 and 20, so at least her child will have a father-figure. Oh, sure, Zach’s parents are a little upset that their son dropped out of college to marry a girl having another man’s rape-baby, but hey, everyone wants grandbabies, right? Oh, and the prom date-rapist, Gray? His character’s function is to act solely as a sperm-donor, and is only mentioned once or twice afterwards. Not very tactful, in my view.
The verdict: sophomoric, pedestrian, and not nearly as clever as it could have been. Reluctantly recommended for Ages 16-18.
Then Lucy goes to her junior prom with Gray Spencer, a sweet, nerdy band geek who passes the wary approval of her over-protective guardians. But after the dance, something strange happens. Something she can’t quite explain. As Lucy and her date are leaving for the after-party, Gray undergoes a sudden, violent personality change, and rapes her. Seeming to come to his senses, he then flees and fatally crashes his car only a few miles from the scene of the crime.
Weeks after these bizarre events, Lucy realizes she’s pregnant, and decides to keep the baby in a tribute to her own birth mother’s decision to keep her. A few months later, Lucy discovers her mother’s old diary and learns a shocking truth: an ancient curse has affected the female members of her family for generations. Apparently her ancestress, Fenella, rejected the sexual advances of a supernatural being (the Elfin Knight) and caused him to curse her. Because of this, each woman of her line is doomed to fall pregnant by 17, and go mad shortly after giving birth to a daughter. The only way to avoid such a fate, Miranda writes, is to fulfill the Elfin Knight’s three impossible demands: she must sew a shirt without any seam or needlework, find an acre of land between the ocean and the shoreline, and then sow the entire acre with a single kernel of corn, using a goat’s horn as a plow. Together, with the support of her adoptive parents and her childhood best friend, Zach, Lucy sets off to solve the tasks before it’s too late.
Impossible is a novel with a unique premise and loads of potential, but it is not a very good story. Its key problem lies in its faulty execution, and the fact that Lucy Scarborough’s real-world problems are resolved with relative fairy tale ease. Lucy loses her virginity through rape? Not to worry. Fortunately for her, she has mental powers of impermeability against the long-term trauma of sexual assault. What about the little matter of Lucy going nuts and leaving her newborn defenseless and alone? No problem. She and Zach fall in love and get married at age 18 and 20, so at least her child will have a father-figure. Oh, sure, Zach’s parents are a little upset that their son dropped out of college to marry a girl having another man’s rape-baby, but hey, everyone wants grandbabies, right? Oh, and the prom date-rapist, Gray? His character’s function is to act solely as a sperm-donor, and is only mentioned once or twice afterwards. Not very tactful, in my view.
The verdict: sophomoric, pedestrian, and not nearly as clever as it could have been. Reluctantly recommended for Ages 16-18.
I liked this book more than I thought I would (with the notable exception of one scene integral to the plot & mostly undetailed). I do, however, think it ranks as an adult book & not a juvenile/young adult one.
I read this story a long time ago. It made a great impression on me, and since then have I have re-read the story a few times. I fell in love with the song "Girl From the North Country", a version of the "Scarborough Fair" written by Bob Dylan and the duet with Johnny Cash is my favorite.... even though this story is so sad.
I think Lucy is one of the most level-headed people I'd ever read. In life, when all these crazy things happen, there is nothing but drama and lives get ruined, and at the time I loved that Lucy doesn't fall apart. Her family rally's around them, & they decide together how to combat the evil, and they win! Yay! :DD
SO yes, now years later I can appreciate, it all seems far fetched, not the story so much, but all their reactions to what is happening to Lucy! I don't care, I have a deep love for Lucy and this story. So I am glad I read it when I was younger, as it stands I don't think I'll have the same reaction to the rest of the series, so I will quit while I'm ahead. :D
I think Lucy is one of the most level-headed people I'd ever read. In life, when all these crazy things happen, there is nothing but drama and lives get ruined, and at the time I loved that Lucy doesn't fall apart. Her family rally's around them, & they decide together how to combat the evil, and they win! Yay! :DD
SO yes, now years later I can appreciate, it all seems far fetched, not the story so much, but all their reactions to what is happening to Lucy! I don't care, I have a deep love for Lucy and this story. So I am glad I read it when I was younger, as it stands I don't think I'll have the same reaction to the rest of the series, so I will quit while I'm ahead. :D
I had great hopes for this book unfortunately it fell short of those.