Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Impossible by Nancy Werlin (reviewed by Alanna Cover)

Another spoiler-tastic and FANATASICAL review from Alanna, turn away if you don't want to be spoiled, but read on if you want a great review!!

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Impossible is amazing. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY AMAAAAZING!!!~

The book starts out with little Lucinda Scarborough at age six finding a compartment. Nancy perfectly describes the amazement of a child when she finds something seemingly magical and secret. Her hiding place for anything. She finds a letter inside, but since she cannot read cursive, discards it, hides it in her older friend's birthday gift to her: a Yastrzemski Red Sox shirt. She hopes it'll fit her the next year, on her seventh birthday, but she completely forgets about both the letter and the T-Shirt. Thus ends the awesome prologue.

Lucinda Scarborough, 17 years old, wants to be normal. But how can she do that when her birth mother, Miranda, is mentally ill and decides to follow her around? She sings this song over and over, it's a haunting song that her foster father, Leo, taught Lucy, having been taught by Miranda before she went beserk. But how can she tell any of her friends that that crazy homeless lady that wanders around the school with a shopping cart is really her mother? She doesn't. Why would she? But, despite that, she IS a normal girl, with everyday problems. Her best friend, Sarah, has so many boyfriend problems, she's a pretty average student, and is on the hurdling team for her school's track team. Life couldn't get any worse, or better, really... but could it?

Her childhood friend, Zach, is coming home that summer to live with them from college, and Lucy is going to her first prom... with a guy! A real life guy! All's well until Miranda shows up at her house and throws glass and plastic bottles at them. Hurting her date's car. The guy drives off, and Lucy feels terrible. Miranda is picked up by the cops, Soledad, Lucy's foster mother and Miranda's best friend, is hurt (more about the fact that Miranda doesn't seem to listen to her, but also because Miranda elbowed her in the nose.) and their guest is oddly fine with it. Lucy's date drives back and picks her up, to Lucy's glee, and takes her to prom after all. Where, simply and something you actually wouldn't expect, he rapes her. Then crashes into a tree.

Whoah... WHAT?!

Back track: yes, after he raped her, he drove off and smashed into a tree... THIS BOOK IS INTENSE!!! ^-^

Anyways, Zach picks her up and takes her home, and he is not happy. Not happy at all. They don't tell the police about what happened, when they are questioned about the way the boy crashed into the tree.

Things start to happen after that... they find out that Lucy is pregnant with Gray Spencer's baby, they find Miranda's journal, they find the letter in the hidden compartment again, and they learn of the three tasks. They learn of her curse. Lucy's maternal family has the same fate: Give birth and go crazy. And the funny thing? They all got pregnant at the same age: 18. And they were all unmarried. Whoah... creepy. After researching more into this (after Zach proclaims his undying love for Lucy (awww... sweeet!! ^-^)) they have no choice but to try to complete the three impossible tasks: make a seamless shirt without needles, find an acre of land between the land and sea, and plow it with a goat's horn and sow it with one grain of corn.

Ouch much? How do you make a seamless shirt? Without needles? What the..? I've been kinda obsessed with my own sewing machine, I know how to make clothes, and seamless? Without needles? Impossible!! Hah! Not for them... They someone used felt and a washing machine to fuse the felt together to make a shirt. As Lucy makes the dummy for the shirt using Zach as a model, he asks her to marry him (^-^) she accepts, it's the best thing for her daughter if she goes crazy.

Then, they have trouble on the second task: I mean, how do you find an acre of land between land and sea? Is there such a thing? And an acre? I was thinking of something related, but it wouldn't ever be an acre anyways.

Anyways, so Zach and Lucy get married as soon as possible, and they fight to get the last two tasks, buying goat horns and wheelbarrow, she figures out how to do the third task... but where is the land? Several of the chapters was trying to find the land, which she soon finds after she meets the Elfin Knight, the man whom put the curse on her family. It is one of Soledad's colleagues: the drop-dead handsom Padraig Seeley. Anyways, they get to the land in Canada, where at high tide is saltwater, and low tide is land. And Lucy begins to plow. She fights as hard as she can with a due date in the next couple of days, and plows as hard as she can, sowing what she plowed with tiny corn particles mixed into sand. On her last three rows, she meets again with the Elfin Knight who gives her a new option: Stop working, and I'll get rid of the curse, if you come with me, if you be my true love.

Lucy gives up! She walks away to stand with her husband, who pushes her back, and helps her push the wheelbarrow again. They finish it right before the tide comes in. And Lucy is in labor. She went into labor three quarters of the way through. And their baby girl is on the way.
Zach rushes his wife to a nearby house and delivers the baby, they give her the name Dawn Greenfield. Not Dawn Scarborough Greenfield. Dawn Greenfield. Simple as that. The Elfin Knight comes to take her. Zach steps in, when he finally sees him, and gives him something the other two did not think of. Lucy did not voice her give in... therefore, it doesn't count. The Elfin Knight, in a fit of rage, leaves.

Lucy is free, the Scarboroughs are free. HAPPY ENDING!!!

But wait!! What happens to the other women who were previously mentally ill? Miranda shows up to a celebratory party... perfectly fine. Goodbye illness!! ^-^

Amazing ending! I was not expecting that!! I thought the Elfin Knight would keep them =/ BUT THIS IS BETTER!! ^-^

Nancy, you are an amazing author!! ^-^ Now I'm gunna read your other books that are lying on my bed ^-^

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Soooo true, Alanna, Nancy IS an amazing author and Impossible is very, very good!

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