June Book Review #6

Book: Impossible by Nancy Werlin
Age-range: 15 and up

This book is based on the song "Scarborough Fair" by Simon and Garfunkel. Apparently Ms. Werlin really listened to the lyrics one day and realized how psychotic they were. A dozen years later voila! she had written this book.

Lucy Scarborough is a junior in high school with fantastic foster parents, an insane mother who's a bag-lady, a best friend named Zach, and a date to prom whose name is, bizarrely enough, Gray. When I first read this book I really didn't know much about it except that the cover looked awesome, but I finished in a couple of days because I got hooked.

My writing partner and I have been discussing prologues. If you didn't know there's a lot of negative feelings about prologues in the publishing community because 9 times out of 10 they're unnecessary. One of my only complaints about this book is the fact that the prologue is a complete waste of time. It doesn't set the tone for the rest of the book and it doesn't give you any information that you couldn't learn just as well later. Yet another proof that prologues are a waste of time and I need to stop writing them for my books.

I really appreciated the way the author dealt with the story. There were times when she could have gotten really graphic, but she didn't. Everything was written with respect to the reader. Sort of like how Hitchcock didn't feel the need to spell everything out, Ms. Werlin realizes that you know what's going on without her showing you the dirty details. I enjoyed this book a lot.

Happy reading!