Impossible

By Nancy Werlin
Read: June 2009
Rating: Excellent

There must have been some great turnover in the AuthorSphere. Newer YA writers–ie., books published after I stopped reading them (around age… 13?)–are clearly onto something. I mean, really, really onto something. It’s not just The Disreputable History. It’s How I Live Now and Libba Bray and Impossible. Cuz this book is awesome. I woke up the day after finishing it and felt a wash of sadness when I realized I could no longer reach for it.

An excellent premise. The book is based on the old folk song, Scarborough Fair. The lines of the song actually make demands, from one lover to another. It has roots as a legend from the British Isles, the story of an elfin knight pursing a human girl. Of course, legends are based on reality.

The Scarborough women are cursed. Lucy grows up with foster parents, but her birth mother is still around. Miranda is insane, wandering the streets of Boston as a homeless woman who refuses all help. Lucy is ashamed of her, as most teenagers would be; she’s afraid to tell anyone that the crazy lady is her real mother. Then, her prom knight goes awry, and the sweet guy she was crushing on rapes her in the empty ballroom. She is seventeen. Just like Miranda was. She gets pregnant… just like Miranda did. Slowly they uncover bits and pieces of Miranda’s story, and realize that this is a pattern that has played out for generations.

The Elfin Knight was spurned by a Scarborough women. And now all her daughters are his to torture and play with. He ensures they become pregnant and give birth at 18. When their children are born, they go insane. Unless they can complete three impossible tasks–weave a shirt without needle or thread, sow a field with one kernel of corn… But as the book jacket says, no other Scarborough girl had what Lucy has: a family and a true love to help her.

It’s a fantastic book. Completely engrossing. And the most important characters are the best. You don’t see them often. Lucy herself is a rational girl. She likes to find the reasons behind things. She’s pragmatic. But she doesn’t swing to the extreme where she denies everything unusual even when it’s staring her in the face. She accepts what she has proof for.

And Zach. Oh, Zach. Zach is one of the sexiest heroes around, and he’s only 20. Cuz he’s SMART. And confident. And when he realizes he’s in love, he goes for it with gusto, never doubting. All of that is sexy. Dead sexy. Yum sexy.

Not that Padraig Seeley (SEELIE! SEELIE! Look, he’s even got it in his NAME!) is not sexy. He is… he’s just evil. Sigh.

Along with all this high fantasy, you also get a really sound dose of rationality and questioning. Obviously a teenage mother impregnated by her rapist isn’t a fantastic topic to deal with in fiction or real life. But they’re all thinking it through. They’re thinking hard. Zach and Lucy are working their butts off to prepare for the two scenarios ahead of them–either they succeed and have to raise a baby, or they fail and Zach is left with an infant and a mad woman. Abortion is considered, seriously, and not rejected out of hand.

I wish there were more. Definitely going to look out for Nancy Werlin.