Review: Extraordinary

Title: Extraordinary
Author: Nancy Werlin
Date Released: September 7th, 2010
Pages: 393
Rating: 3 out of 5

Description:
Phoebe finds herself drawn to Mallory, the strange and secretive new kid in school, and the two girls become as close as sisters . . . until Mallory's magnetic older brother, Ryland, shows up during their junior year. Ryland has an immediate, exciting hold on Phoebe, but a dangerous hold, for she begins to question her feelings about her best friend and, worse, about herself. Soon she'll discover the shocking truth about Ryland and Mallory: that these two are visitors from the faerie realm who have come to collect on an age-old debt. Generations ago, the faerie queen promised Pheobe's ancestor five extraordinary sons in exchange for the sacrifice of one ordinary female heir. But in hundreds of years there hasn't been a single ordinary girl in the family, and now the faeries are dying. Could Phoebe be the first ordinary one? Could she save the faeries, or is she special enough to save herself?

Review:
Extraordinary opens up when Phoebe meets Mallory in the beginning of 7th grade.  They become best friends, and remain best friends all through the 4 years that the book skips.  When it picks up again, 4 years later, things really start to change for Phoebe and Mallory when Ryland comes into the pictures, Mallory's older brother. 

One thing I really liked was Nancy Werlin's writing style because it fit the book perfectly.  It sort of felt a little haunting and creepy, like the book itself.  It was serious, but also probably made the book seem sort of monotone, if that even makes sense.  It kind of seemed bland and didn't really have that wow factor that would've made my jaw drop.  Maybe somethings were shocking and kept the plot going, but it just didn't really capture my attention like most books do.  When I read a book, I imagine what the whole scenery is like in my head.  So, when I tried capturing what I thought the whole scenery would look like, it seemed sort of black and white, and dull.  But that was just for me. 

Sometimes Phoebe was kind of frustrating because you can see that her relationship with Ryland was not real at all because sometimes Ryland was really mean and would be all like "You're worthless" and she's like "Okay" to the point where she basically believes him and breaks down.  I get the point of why he was like that and it was part of the whole mission that Mallory and Ryland were sent to the regular human world to do.  But still.  Another thing that really shocked me about Phoebe was how she was begging Mallory to be her friend in the beginning of the book.  Who does that?  Phoebe doesn't really have the strength for most of the book that I admire in most characters that I read about.

Back to the positive side of this book:  I actually really liked the ending.  It kind of made me want to cry and I felt proud of Phoebe for finally coming to her senses.  Another good point is that I think that the whole storyline was original.  The blending of history and faeries was really cool and I loved the idea.  I just wish that it could've been more interesting and captivating.  If it just had that one more thing, then this probably would've been a really good book. 

I really thought I was going to fall in love with Extraordinary because I absolutely loved Nancy Werlin's other book, Impossible. I actually didn't end up liking it that much. I thought it was sort of strange, and kind of boring.  If you're looking for a story with a different twist of the faerie world, then go for it!   

Cover Review:
This cover is beautiful!  It looks very enchanting and fits a story that's about the faerie realm.  I love all the grass and trees, and the girl running in the forest.  It's really pretty :)

Cleo :)

*Description from Goodreads.com
**Review copy purchased.