Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Lucy Scarborough is only seventeen when she finds out that she’s pregnant. While originally shocked, she soon comes to realize that this is what happens to Scarborough girls. Lucy quickly discovers that the women in her family have been cursed for generations by an evil elfin king. When the women become pregnant they then must complete three impossible tasks before their baby is born or else they become crazy once their child is born.

Creating a shirt without a seam or any needlework, finding an acre of land between the salt water and sea strand, and plowing the land with a goat’s horn and sowing it all over with one grain of corn, all seem like impossible tasks, but they are what Lucy must do. Scared out of her mind, Lucy sets her mind to completing all these tasks in just nine short months, even though no other Scarborough girl has been able to do it before. Lucy has something though that no other Scarborough girl has had before, a loving family. Will the help of her foster parents and her best friend Zach be enough to break the curse, or will Lucy turn out just like the rest of the women in her family?

This book was completely breathtaking. The whole idea to base a book off a folk song is completely unique and kept me interested during the whole book. While it took me a few chapters to fully get into the story, once I had settled in I couldn’t put the book down.

Lucy was a completely believable character who faced real everyday problems. She had a level head, but she also dealt with many emotions that were genuine. I also felt that the supporting characters in the story were well developed as well. For example, Miranda, Lucy’s biological mother, didn’t appear much in the story, but every time she did it didn’t feel like we were meeting someone new. She had been talked about and described enough that she was made into an important person, even though she only appeared in the story a few times. Another character that I thought was really well created was Padraig Seeley. Again, he didn’t come up much in the story, but his personality really came through. The sliminess of his persona felt so real, that he immediately set up red alarms, the first time he was introduced. This was a really unique thing that I the author was able to create, and really added to the book.

It was also really neat to read this modern fairy tale. The book had all these modern technologies, but then incorporated this old fairy world, which made the book spellbinding. I loved how Lucy and her family figured out the tasks using modern conveniences, but then also looked at this from the past to help figure out the curse. This truly added to the book as it combined some of the best elements of a general YA book with that of a fantasy, creating this new type of book that I hope to see much more of.

I was very much impressed with Nancy Werlin’s writing style. It was graceful, yet intense, emotion packed, and very real. I am really interested in reading more of her books and can’t wait to see what she has in store for u next!