Impossible by Nancy Werlin (Dial Books, September 2008)Until she turns 18, the only blot on Lucy Scarborough’s life is an insane mother, who abandoned her when she was a baby and now lives on the streets. Lucy loves her foster parents, Leo and Soledad, who send her off to the prom – where she is raped by her date, who dies in a car crash immediately afterward. Lucy, despite the medication she takes, becomes pregnant.
It turns out that Lucy is the latest in a long line of women who give birth at 18 and then go insane. An ancestor named Fenella made the big mistake of refusing an elf lord, who cursed all her descendants to insanity and subservience – unless a Scarborough girl could fulfill three seemingly impossible tasks, detailed in a version of the song Scarborough Fair. Luckily, the modern age, and in particular the Internet, has made all manner of wonders possible, and Lucy accomplishes the impossible in the nick of time.
It’s not the magical portion of this tale that is enthralling, but rather Lucy’s changing feelings toward her longtime friend and neighbor Zach, and the slow transformation of their relationship into something truly strong and even powerful. Only together can they overcome the elf lord’s tyranny.
Part classic YA saga and part modern-day fantasy, this suspenseful and well-written novel will appeal to fans of Ellen Wittlinger and Melissa Marr.
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