Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Well summer has come to an end, marked by my oldest heading off to school, still have my youngest for a month.  It has been a great summer filled with lots of traveling and family.  I'm sorry it has to end but excited to get back to my routine and my blog.  I hope you all had a wonderful summer and I'm so glad you stopped by today.

Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that she is the latest recipient of a generations-old family curse that requires her to complete three seemingly impossible tasks or risk falling into madness and passing the curse on to the next generation. Unlike her ancestors, though, Lucy has family, friends, and other modern resources to help her out. But will it be enough to conquer this age-old evil? 

A beautifully wrought modern fairy tale from master storyteller and award-winning author Nancy Werlin. Inspired by the classic folk ballad "Scarborough Fair," this is a wonderfully riveting and haunting novel of suspense, romance, and fantasy.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book, nor could I remember what drew me to it in the first place.  Going in without any expectations probably saved me from absolutely hating this book.  In the end I decided to give Impossible 2 out of 5 stars.

My initial issue with this book is that it took it a long time to get off the ground.  Instead of getting right to the problem and the three tasks that Lucy would have to face Nancy takes over 100 pages to get to the incident that sets off everything.  Yes I agree that some character development needs to be made but I as a reader prefer to see my characters in action rather than in a slow drudge through everyday life.

Once the horrible incident that set everything off took place all the characters, and I mean all of them, seemed to just accept it and move on.  I'm sorry but there is an element of fantasy (folklore) here that any normal person would not just accept once told.  I liked the fact that the people in Lucy's life supported her and believed in her but everything was just too easy and convenient.

Now I want to take a second to go back to the whole action thing, or lack there of.  So Impossible has this wonderful set up, horrible incident, 3 tasks to perform.  One would think the majority of the book would be on performing the three critical tasks.  Well, it's not.  In fact one task is completed in a couple of paragraphs.  No great dramatic lead up, no thwart, no action during, it just happens and then we move on. I do have to say that the last task does have a lot more drama and intrigue to it but at this point in time I was just reading because I had read over half the book.

Final thoughts.  Well, I didn't like the book but I am not relegating it to the worst books I've ever read.  I probably won't pick up anything else by this author.

The Friday 56, Book Beginnings, Literary Friday

Book Beginnings
There will be no awakening.

The Friday 56
The camp lay twenty miles east of where we lived, hacked out of the woods during the 3rd wave to build a field hospital after the ones in town had reached full capacity.