Impossible

Written by Nancy Werlin

Narrated by Emily Durante

For fans of Beautiful Creatures and Wicked Lovely comes this New York Times Bestselling modern fairy tale from National Book Award Finalist Nancy Werlin.

Inspired by the classic folk ballad "Scarborough Fair," this wonderfully riveting novel is rife with suspense, romance, and fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Lucy discovers that she is the latest recipient of a generations-old Elvin curse that requires women in her family to complete three impossible tasks or risk falling into madness and passing the curse on to the next generation. Unlike her ancestors, Lucy has the support of her fiercely protective adoptive parents, and her best friend Zach, whose friendship may be turning into something more. But do they have enough love and resolve to conquer this age-old evil?

The Scarborough Girls' story continues in Unthinkable and the companion novel Extraordinary.

"Teens, especially young women, will enjoy this romantic fairy tale with modern trappings."—School Library Journal (starred review)

"Showcases the author's finesse at melding genres [with its] graceful interplay between wild magic and contemporary reality [and its] catapulting suspense."—Booklist (starred review)

"The melding of magic and practicality produces a lovely whole."—Kirkus (starred review)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Nov 20, 2008
• ISBN: 9781423378648

Nancy Werlin

NANCY WERLIN was born in Massachusetts, where she still lives. In writing for teenagers, she always strives to combine the emotional intensity of a coming-of-age story with the page-turning tension of a suspense thriller. Nancy’s books have won numerous awards and accolades, including the Edgar award for The Killer’s Cousin, which was also named one of the “100 Best of the Best for the 21st Century” by the American Library Association. Her most recent book, The Rules of Survival, was a National Book Award Finalist. Visit her web site at www.nancywerlin.com

Reviews for Impossible

[fmgolden · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

How nice that Zach, the boy next door, steps in to marry Lucy after she gets pregnant at seventeen, raped by the evil Elfin Knight that cursed her family. This book was well written, but unrealistic. It is a romantic tale in which every little thing works out in the end, including the boy next door that Lucy has loved since she was small. I could not recommend this for teens because I would not want them thinking that real life works this way, it doesn't.

[nu5bibliophile · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was truly thrilling, imaginative, romantic, supernatural, and suspenseful. I've never read a book with a story line and characters like this one. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[reckshow · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

My friend said it best. Great concept, but the writing didn't live up to it.

[rin.wilson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lucy's mother appears on occasion before disappearing to wander the country again, consumed by madness since she was Lucy's age. Lucy lives with her loving foster parents, old friends of her mothers. After a date to the school dance ends in tragedy, it is revealed to Lucy that her family has been the victim of rape and madness for generations. The song "Scarborough Fair" is about her family, and she has very little time to save herself and her unborn daughter. Her foster family and the big-brother-next-door friend of the family who becomes her love interest decide to treat this insane-sounding story as a real threat to Lucy, and fight with her, which was by far my favorite part of this book. The love that surrounds Lucy will definitely appeal to teens who come from generations of hard situations and want to change their fate.This book seems to be one people love or hate, but it's definitely gripping. I read it almost in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. It has some intense and creepy elements, but also an obscure fairy-tale retelling element, which always gets props from me. My biggest criticism was that the final epic battle between heroine and villain was less interesting than the struggle leading up to it.

[catalogthis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great example of YA fantasy that keeps one foot very well grounded in reality. Lucy's curse may be based in elf-and-faery magic (or, "The Weird Stuff" as her friend Zach would say), but her foster family's reaction is honest and sincere. These are definitely not the Dursleys! Overall, a quick, very satisfying read.

[kiernanmaire · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’ve never been a fan of urban fantasy. When I read fantasy, I prefer it to be Tolkeinesque, or set a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away. When I read about a fairy making cell phone calls to a troll, or vampires working at Pizza Hit, I immediately lose interest in the story, no matter how well-written it may be. I guess I just can’t suspend my disbelief, or I prefer my fantasy unsullied by everything modern and mundane. There are a few fantasy writers that do magical realism so well, and write stories so believable, they seem timeless. I never hesitate to pick up a Cornelia Funke, for example, because she makes the fantastical in her modern world seem so possible, it doesn’t distract from the story at all. I’ve found a few other authors like this, but not many. Today, I’m adding Nancy Werlin to this list, although I think this may be her first fantasy book.

According to Werlin’s website, she wrote Impossible as a response to the current trend of vampire fiction, the latest incarnation of the classic good girl falls for dangerous boy tale, a favorite of the typical romantic teenage girl. Romanticizing the bad boy is not only dangerous, but it’s been done to death, so it’s refreshing to see the good boy get the girl. Werlin’s good boy is human, average, but exceptionally loyal and loving, and it is his devotion that helps Lucy complete her impossible tasks.

[leirali · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I give up. Because life is too short and my TBR pile too high to continue with Books That Suck. I made it through 2 whole discs (out of 8 discs) before I had to throw my hands up and walk away. I think the premise of the book is awesome - to base a novel on a folk song - but it just wasn't enough. The writing is exceptionally poor, with head-hopping all over the damn place and herky-jerky, unrealistic dialogue. I was also offended by the glib way a sensitive topic like sexual assault was treated here. Normally I do not review a book that I haven't finished. But since I made it about a quarter of the way through it, I decided that I get to put my two cents in. Maybe it does get better later. Unfortunately, the first quarter of the book was not enough to convince me to keep reading. Peace out, "Impossible."

[jessicalouise23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For generations the Scarborough girls have each fallen pregnant at the age of 17 then after each giving birth to a baby girl became mad straight after to the point that their beyond help. This is what happened to our main character Lucy Scarborough?s mother Miranda, so when Lucy herself falls pregnant after being raped at the age of 17 she finds it a little strange a really weird coincidence or not? Her mother keeps turning up at her foster parents house trying to tell Lucy that theres a curse on the family and that Lucy?s doomed to the same fate as the rest of the women in the family unless she completes 3 impossible tasks from a folk song based on the Scarborough girls curse that has haunted her all of her life. So is there a curse? Or is it just one of her mother?s crazy tales? And more importantly how is Lucy going to break a curse asking her to perform three impossible tasks to save herself and her unborn daughter?I actually brought this book on a bit of a whim not really knowing that much about it or its author, Ok I admit I was drawn in by the cool cover! But all in all I?m glad I picked it up. It was an original story and a fairly quick read full of magic and romance. Over all I?d give it 4 stars.

[headinherbooks_27 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was truly thrilling, imaginative, romantic, supernatural, and suspenseful. I've never read a book with a story line and characters like this one. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[wrightja2000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed this. I especially liked how family comes together to help the MC.

[librarianjen · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't know which part I liked least... the audio book narrator, who sounded like she was reading picture books to a room full of kindergartners, or the book itself, which includes entirely too much mundane inner dialog for my taste (should I? I should. I shouldn't. I can't. I will. ad infinitum) while having many important events happen "off-stage." I can tell that this is a book that would appeal to some people, but I am not one of those people.

The best thing about this book is that the dog doesn't die. He goes outside in the beginning of the last third and then isn't mentioned again until the last chapter.

[fingerpost_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

(Forewarning: A key plot element in this book is a rape. I wouldn't have chosen the book had I known that to start with, but I was already into it by the time the event occurred.)Lucy does not discover until after she is 17years old and raped, that she lives under a curse. A real curse, of the supernatural kind. Every one of her ancestors was a girl who got pregnant at 17, gave birth at 18, and then went insane. But with the help of her foster parents and friend, soon to be boyfriend, she aims to solve the riddles of the curse to escape it.The first half of the book dragged a bit too much, but things start picking up after the half way point. The supernatural element in our real world was portrayed quite believably. Lucy takes a long time to figure out who the villain is, though even an inattentive reader will know immediately, from his first appearance. Although I liked Lucy, Zack, and several of the other characters all right, but they weren't fully developed enough for me to love them. More character development was needed. If the three words "teen, supernatural, romance" set your heart a-flutter, you'll probably love this book. If not, you should probably look elsewhere.

[altheaann · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Read this for book club. None of us could figure out why it had been recommended to us, or why it was nominated for awards. I don't think there has ever been another selection for our book club that was so universally disliked.
Reasons:
*Offensive, retrograde, disturbing implications for the young women that the book is aimed toward. An evil faerie lord has cursed the women of the protagonists' family for generations. She is doomed to be raped, have a baby, and then go crazy. But of course, having the rape-baby is the Most Important Thing! (Shades of crappy Twilight, here.)
*Messages that a young woman cannot be self-reliant. You need someone to help you, or your will won't be strong enough, and you'll fail. Also, you'll be really dumb unless you have a guy around to point obvious stuff out to you, apparently. If you're pregnant, you should marry SOMEONE, even if it's the guy who you grew up with and always treated like a brother. (eww, incest-creepy!)
*Disturbing lack of concern for the apparently very decent young man who is possessed by supernatural forces, forced to have sex with someone, and then is killed or commits suicide.
*Unrealistic, unconvincing relationships between everyone in the book. Interactions felt flat and unbelievable.
*Shallow and unrealistic portrayal of a "crazy" person.

In addition to the above, I also had a problem with the re-imagining of the song, and of Faerie itself.
I don't think Faerie should be described as "evil." I see it as amoral. Yes, it may screw with your life, but out of alien-ness, dealing with beings from a different realm. This faerie lord came across more as a Christian devil. Boring.

The 'solutions' for the impossible tasks were unimaginative and/or derived from the author's reworkings of the song. (People did actually KNOW about felting, back in the day. Cambric is a woven material. No, the shirt was never supposed to be "magical." etc.)

According to the author's note, the whole book was based on her early misunderstanding of the song "Scarborough Fair." She thought it was "romantic." Umm. No. The whole appeal of "Scarborough Fair," to me, is that it's a powerful message that says, "No, never going back to you, not ever, no way, no how." It's a "romance is over" song, not a romantic song.
So, on a personal level, I just didn't like the changing of the message of a song I really love. On an objective level, this just isn't a very good book.

The premise for this book sounded amazing, but I found it sadly disappointing. We had a good book club meeting bashing it, though!

[bookspot · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Inspired by the ballad "Scarborough Fair," Impossible is the story of Lucy who has lived her whole life raised by foster parents and knowing that the crazy woman pushing a shopping cart (sometimes) around town is her mother.

It's not until she's seventeen, though, that she connects her mother with the letter six-year-old Lucy found hidden away in her room. The letter that will tell her more than she possibly ever wanted to know about the women in her family, her own fate, what really happened to her mother, and what she must do to change her destiny. (I'm being vague again but I didn't want to paste in the Amazon summary because I thought it told a lot of the story right off the bat...maybe I'm just being picky.)

While this wasn't this amazing character driven story (Zach was Lucy's best friend and the main male character but I didn't really feel the chemistry there; they didn't not work together, but if a new male character had been introduced my heart wouldn't have broken for them), it was very good. The plot relied a good bit on folklore and mythology and that was done extremely well and the way each piece built on the previous ones and everything eventually added up all worked very well for me. It all made for a great mystery.

So, while it might be true that if you took the mystery out and wrote a general fiction or teen romance with the same characters it wouldn't work, that doesn't matter because this wasn't general fic or romance. I did, though, find myself consistently wondering just what a certain element of the 'mystery' was going to mean, how something was going to play out or just how they were going to solve some problem. It was a very creative book and very well researched and I truly enjoyed it-I'm going to have to look for more of Nancy Werlin's books.

[zephyrsky-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An interesting premise, but unfortunately the characters are rather cardboard.

I wanted to like the story much more than I did, but I just couldn't seem to quite get into it

[francescaforrest · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lucy is descended from a line of women who have been cursed by the elfin knight of "Scarborough Fair" fame ("The Elfin Knight" is an older name for that ballad) after their ancestor rebuffed him. Each woman in her turn becomes pregnant at 18 with a daughter and must strive, while pregnant to carry out the impossible tasks of the song. If they succeed, they'll be free; if they fail, they will go mad. No one has succeeded yet.

In folklore, when impossible tasks are set, the resolutions are usually like the resolutions of a riddle. I remember, for instance, a fairytale in which someone had to appear before a king dressed but undressed, and give him a gift, but not give him a gift. She arrived dressed in a fishing net--she was wearing the net, and yet was still naked--and gave him a bird that, as she handed it to him, flew away. It's fun seeing how people subvert the demands. Lucy's solutions seem more literal-minded than this, but I did enjoy seeing her and her family work out how to create a shirt without a seam or fine needlework.

And that brings me to a unique strength of this story: the fact that Lucy's family and love interest come to her aid. Everyone works together to help her get these tasks done. Love and family support make a difference.

A weak point, for me, about the story was Lucy's age. She's a high school student, but her thoughts and attitudes feel much more mature than that. The love story, too, wasn't quite for me. I liked the character of her love interest, but the **fact** of the love story--entailing early marriage to bring up the baby that she has to bear--was just not for me.

Still, I do like seeing people play with old ballads, and I was glad to read this.

[satyridae · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Taut and suspenseful novel loosely based on the old ballad Scarborough Fair. The modern setting works admirably, the characters are sympathetic and involving, and I willingly suspended my disbelief regarding the parents' support of what, on the face of it, seems a preposterous whim of a pregnant teenager. Very nicely done.

[akmargie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I went back and forth between 3 and 4. I like the story, very unique and the characters were interesting but...there were some small writing things, not problems just little ticks. Like the main character kept refering to her "foster parents." After the first time it's explained these aren't her biological parents, I get it. It's not important to the story I know, but everytime it happened it annoyed me. Enough that I was distracted. And there were these weird point of view shifts. Again, writing things but still, they bugged me. Still a good read though.

[thelukewarm225 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Another interesting idea horribly executed. I only finished it because there was nothing else on my ipod and I was stuck at work. I also would've never picked this up if the back covered mentioned the main character is preggers. It's pretty much twilight fan fiction.

[taleofnight · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I just want to warn anybody who actually wants to read this book, that this review might contain spoilers.I've had this book sitting on my bookshelf since late 2009. I finally got myself to read it, but now I know why I've been avoiding it for so long. I was really intrigued by this story because it's based off of a song, "Scarborough Fair", which I have never heard of until I started reading and decided to look it up.So basically, the story is about Lucy Scarborough who is cursed to become pregnant at 17, just like her ancestors before her. If she doesn't complete three tasks that are mentioned in the song "Scarborough Fair" then she will go insane and pass the curse onto her daughter.I found myself very impatient while I read. We don't even get to the impossible tasks until about 200 pages in. I felt like there were a lot of scenes that could have been left out and the story wouldn't have been affected at all. Which, I started skimming over a lot of pages, just to get to the part that I was interested in. The only reason I finished the book was because I was interested in how Lucy would finished the tasks.The relationship between Lucy and Zach didn't seem genuine to me. It seemed like they were only getting together because it was convenient. There wasn't much leading up to Lucy and Zach's relationship. Zach goes from thinking of Lucy as a sister, to purposing his love to her. They never talk about liking each other or dating or anything to show that they both have feelings for each other. They go from friends to engaged. The relationship kind of rubbed me the wrong way, because Lucy is questioning her feelings for Zach throughout the whole story, but yet she still marries him for the sake of her baby. The whole relationship was just strange and didn't sit well with me.Lucy getting raped and then easily moving on with her life also bugged me. Everyone, including Lucy's foster parents and Zach act like it wasn't a big deal. No one got angry or sad, they were all calm and accepting of it.I felt like a lot of things got swept under the rug, for the sake of the story.But, to put some positive into this review, I did enjoy reading about Lucy trying to break the curse and her family history. This is what kept me reading to the end.Overall, the book was okay, but the story moved too slowly for me.

[readingthruthenight · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Title: impossibleAuthor: Nancy WerlinPages: 373Pub: Penguin (Speak); 2008Genre: Young Adult, FantasyEtc: The Short of ItCurse continues unless impossible tasks completed. The Long of ItOddly, Lucy finds herself in a very similar predicament as her estranged mom: pregnant at seventeen. Lucy might have talked to her mom about this, except she’s fairly crazy and wonders on the streets off and on. Instead, she takes comfort from her awesome adoptive parents and “the boy next door” who she’s known for a lifetime. She will have this baby. She is determined to get through it.But then something extraordinary comes up. She uncovers a curse that affects all of the Scarborough women. A curse brought on because an Elfin Knight was spurned generations back. A curse that will cause all of the Scarborough women to go insane. In order to break the curse, Lucy must complete three impossible tasks:Make a shirt without any seam or needleworkFind an acre of land between salt water and the sea strandPlow it with just a goat’s hor and sow it all over with one grain of cornIf she doesn’t break the curse, then her unborn daughter will be left vulnerable to the Elfin Knight.The Thoughts about It*twiddling fingers all Homer Simpson’s boss-like* Sounds enchanting doesn’t it? ESPECIALLY because the author got the idea from Scarborough Fair, the song. Uhhh, who out there doesn’t like some Simon and Garfunkle? Which, ultimately, is exactly why I picked up this book. You have to admit, the idea behind it is quite clever, eh?Soooo, it saddens me very much to have to admit that I wasn’t fond of the book at all. Man, I leapt for joy when I found this at Borders. I couldn’t wait to figure out how the author would tackle all three tasks. And although, how she did it DID prove to be rather clever, the execution of the plot left me feeling bland and stale like.In fact, while I was contemplating a way of explaining exactly how I felt about this lil’ ole’ book, I continued to have the image of those felt boards that are often used in kindergarten classes. You know the ones, right? They’re usually black and while the teacher is telling a fairy tale or whatever story, (s)he presses the felt cut-outs on the board for imagery? Yeah, it felt like those felt images minus an enthusiastic teacher narrating it.What is wrong with me? I heard about this book from a review that made it aaammmaaazing. I totally wanted to be charmed and swept away. It’s been too long since I’ve read a contemporary fairy tale that can do that for me. This was supposed to be The One.*shrug* On the plus side, it made me quite intrigued with the Elfin Knight tale and other versions of Scarborough Fair. And for those of you who have not HEARD Scarborough Fields (blaspheme!) here’s the video. Enjoy.

[dreamingawake_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I LOVED this book. When I first got it, I had my doubts. I thought it's be a boring, uninteresting book. But the more and more I read it, the more it became almost impossible to put the book down. I really liked the plot. Really unique. It definetly went past my expections.

[hollyrae_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book, It keeps your interest. The story flowed really well, Lucy was a really likable character. So I gave this a 4/5.

[mrsboswellbooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

17-year-old Lucy Scarborough thinks the song "Scarborough Fair" is just some song her crazy birth mother sang as she wandered around town. Little did she know that her mother was actually trying to tell her something. All too late, when Lucy is raped and becomes pregnant, she realizes that song holds more meaning to it than just the random thoughts of a mad woman. The song holds significant meaning for the women of the Scarborough line. They are cursed to become pregnant and give birth to daughters at the age of 18, then fall into madness once the child is born. The curse will continue with each woman down the line, unless three seemingly impossible tasks are performed.1) Make a magical shirt without any seems or needlework2) Find an acre of land between the salt water and the sea strand3) Plow the land with just a goat's horn and sow it all over with one grain of cornOnce Lucy realizes the true madness of the curse, she will do anything she can to protect her child. Lucy is fortunate, for she has support in this matter... something that the other women in her family may not have had. With the help of her foster parents and Zach, her friend since childhood, Lucy will tackle the tasks ahead and keep fighting up until the very last day.This was a very curious read. The premise was quite interesting, basing the story on a song. The thought Nancy Werlin had to put into the story, to come up with ways to complete these nearly impossible tasks. I can't imagine what type of research she had to do to complete this story. After run-ins with Lucy's insane mother, Miranda, I wanted to cheer her on that much more to be able to finish the tasks. Not to mention the love and support that Lucy got from her foster parents and Zach, that just made you want her to break the curse and be happy.The one thing I didn't like about this story was how it jumped around. Granted, I do not need to read about what happens EACH and EVERY day. I just would have liked to know what was going on in between it all, instead of jumping around every couple weeks and then suddenly, Lucy is 7 months pregnant. But, she was only 20 weeks a chapter ago, right??

[mrsmich02 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Strictly in a storyteller sense, this was a good read. As the title poses, there doesn't seem to be anything in here that would be possible. Doomed to the fate of every one of your ancestors unless you can find a way to break a curse. Yep, impossible given the terms. And now I have Simon and Garfunkel stuck in my head. Sheesh. Just as a "fairy tale", it is an original idea.

[bookratmisty · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Slightly under a 4 due to the style and some issues, but all in all, I liked it. I was excited for this one because of this gorgeous cover. And in some ways, it lived up to my excitement, while at the same time, falling short in others. Werlin presents a very modern, disturbing slant on the age old ballad. She layers the book with enough realism and negativity (nothing is ever falsely sugar-coated; Lucy is a realist, if nothing else) that I was able to believe that things may not be wrapped up with the expected "happily ever after." I like having that doubt when I read a story, because I like thinking that an author is going to do what's right for the story and the characters they have created, and not cop out with an easy, happy ending. Because of this realistic streak and clearheadedness from Lucy, the magical elements of the story, no matter how far-fetched, seemed more balanced and true, which I definitely liked. Lucy felt real, and I cared about her and the plight of the Scarborough women. And I liked what Werlin did with the ballad. In her afterword, Werlin talks about how the book came about, saying she loved the Simon and Garfunkel version as a kid, but as she got older and really listened to the words (in which a man requests that a woman complete impossible tasks to be his true love), she had an epiphany: he doesn't love her, he hates her. Faced with this new 'understanding' of the ballad, Werlin set about fleshing out their story; clearly, there was once something between them, but something soured it. Her story of Impossible grew from this seed. This idea really struck me. I liked the idea that she was revisiting something and approaching it from a fresh angle, and that whole "thin line between love and hate" element was brilliant, I think, and a very adult take for a YA novel. I really liked this aspect. Unfortunately, it was inconsistent. Werlin's adult application to the story wasn't carried throughout. Sometimes the writing was very adult and forward, and sometimes it was almost juvenile and a bit weak for me. The characters, too, were inconsistent. The Elfin Knight (bad guy of yore) was very villainous, for sure; at times he made my skin crawl, which was great*. But there are more fine lines than the one between ♥/hate, and his villain-line was occasionally crossed into cheese territory. I wish she would have dialed it back just a bit at the end. And though Lucy felt fleshed out and real to me, the other important characters felt occasionally cardboard. Not always, by any means, but I just found myself wishing for a little more from them. Now, all this being said, I didn't dislike the story. It didn't live up to the excitement generated by its cover or the subject matter, or to the really good threads I saw running through it -- but it wasn't a failure, either, and I don't regret buying it. I could tell it was well researched and plotted out, but it just had a tendency, especially in the beginning, to feel a little clunky and young. In spite of this, I found myself engaged, and I didn't ever not want** to read it; I found myself thinking about Lucy and the tasks, and the story in general, and that's a good sign. With a little more finesse, I think I'd give it an enthusiastic recommend, but instead it's a reserved one. If you like fairytale retellings and stories that make you a little uncomfortable, you'll like this one and will likely be able to overlook the issues; if you don't, I'm just not sure... *Yep. Great skin-crawling. But that means it was effective, so that's a + in my opinion. **If that made any sense...

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lucy is a teenager and fostered. She discovers that her mother's madness has been in the family for generations and at about the age she is now. When she is raped at her prom and becomes pregnant she realises that the cycle is beginning again. This time however she has Zach at her side, and while she has three seemingly impossible tasks from Faerie to do she also has hope.It's an interesting read, I liked the solution of the three impossible tasks (though I would have dealt with the felted garment a little differently) and the fact that her foster mother was always crocheting or knitting led more credence to the knowledge of this technique. An interesting story.

[chino96 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The novel, Impossible by Nancy Werlin encompasses . In the beginning, Lucy lives with her foster parents, Soledad and Leo, they adopted lucy when her biological mother, Miranda, went crazy. Lucy struggles with not having her biological mother by her side and Miranda going crazy. throughout the middle she persveres through getting raped at prom and that leaving her pregnant. By the end she has learned of a curse that comes from a song that song states that eighteen, she'll give birth to a girl and then Lucy would go crazy, if Lucy doesn't do the challenge the song tells her to do she'll go crazy like mother. 201/376

[rvolenti · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book was awful. Terrible character development and terrible plot. It's not worth it for any age. I'm glad I got if from the library instead of buying it.

[vandygirl_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lucy Scarborough comes from a long line of women who give birth to baby girls at 18-years-old and then go insane. When she learns that she can overcome her fate by completing the three impossible tasks in the folk song “Scarborough Fair” she is determined to fight for herself and her unborn daughter. With the support of her family and friends, Lucy may be the first Scarborough girl to keep her life and sanity intact.“Impossible” is a fast-paced novel and, although it is full of fantastical elements, from demons to ancient curses, Lucy’s story is realistic and believable. One does not need to be a lover of fantasy to enjoy the intricate and interesting plot. Overall, a quick read and difficult to put down. Grades 8 – 12.