Stork (Stork #1) - Wendy Delsol

The Gist

Stork
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Katla Leblanc is a city girl and she always has been. But when her parents get a divorce and her mother get's custody, it's off to Norse Falls, Minnesota , her mother's hometown, and bye-bye to California beaches and city-scapes. Kat can't image a worse fate than having to live in Norse Falls forever, but her mother tells her to try and embrace her heritage. But when weird things start to happen to her, and family secrets come out, Kat's left wondering if she really does fit in with Norse Falls after all, and if Jack, a sullen boy who insists they know each other, might have more to him than meets the eye.

What We Think
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
Number of Pages: 355 
Well, I started out reading this book for no reason at all. Honestly. I saw it at a bookstore in the "slightly hurt" (and therefore cheap) section and thought I recalled it from our to-read list on goodreads. I said what they hay, bought it, went to check it on currently-reading and suddenly it seemed we had not ever marked it as to-read. What a waste of $5.75, right?
I read it anyway, though and I was surprised to find that it actually wasn't that bad. Ridiculous and a little juvenile, of course, but other than that...I mean for what I expected, I was pleasantly surprised. Which brings me to first item on my agenda, the cover. I mean, look at it. Look at it. Is that supposed to be Kat? If so, what is she smirking at? She honestly doesn't have all that much to smirk about. Gah. I would change that cover in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat. Half of a quarter of a heartbeat.
And don't get me started on characters. I'm kidding. They weren't that bad. Kat, for a somewhat stubborn, somewhat smart, somewhat derp protagonist, wasn't half bad. She wasn't completely oblivious, which was a nice change of pace from most protagonists in most book (that is, flighty, undecided, clueless bumpkins who wouldn't know a clue if it smacked them in the nose) and she tended to figure things out quickly enough. The only thing I didn't love about her was her relationships with her friends and boyfriend. With her parents she seemed normal but around her friends she just sounded off, like she wasn't all there, like she wasn't invested in the conversation. As far as Jack goes, hoo-rah to Wendy Delsol for making another perfect-guy clone. He wasn't as glaringly obvious as a, let's say, Edward or Jacob, and he did have his angsty-teen moments, but I feel like overall he lacked a little depth. I'm not even going to mention the other characters; they were wallpaper. I lied. I just decided to mention Hulda. Who is Hulda? you ask. Naturally, you wouldn't know who Hulda was because there was no space for her in the gist, but Hulda was a crazy old bird-lady and probably my favorite character in the whole book. She was from Iceland and was full of crazy spells and potions and wisdom. I think she was supposed to have an accent because of the grammar of her dialogue...if not that's how I envisioned her anyway. She was awesome. I want to be just like her when I'm an old lady.
I think I'm only going  to mention one more thing. The plot/idea of the story. It was, to say the least, different. And I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. You can, or should, infer by the title that this book has something to do with storks, the mythical baby-bringing beings. I didn't include it in the gist because I wanted a sort of ambiguity, but I'll spoiler it right now; it's about storks. But only in the technical sense - there aren't literal birds who bring babies, but there are some stork-like things..or people...if you catch my drift. Don't worry, there's only one pregnancy in the book, and it's nothing truly scandalous, I assure you. Honestly, though, have you ever heard of a book about something like that before? I haven't, so MAJOR props to Wendy (for real, this time) for a completely original idea. They're hard to come by. In addition to that, the plot was multi-layered. There were small story-lines beneath the over-arcing one, so it was hard to get bored when reading.
Overall, I would say this is a perfectly nice bit of fluff, which I know sounds like an insult, but isn't. Everyone needs a fluff book every now and again, and this would be okay for that sort of thing. If you're looking for philosophy, look somewhere else. But as far as simple pieces of YA fiction go, this takes the supernatural-romance YA book cake. Not my favorite book ever, but I don't regret reading it. And it's a series....so there's still more to come...

Real Teen Rating ~ C+ : Well, I guess it was good...