Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Lucy Scarborough has never really known her mother. She sees her sometimes, on the street (that's where Miranda, her mother, lives), and knows that Miranda has been in and out of mental institutions. She's grown up with foster parents who love her, and is looking forward to the prom. But things go terribly, tragically wrong at the prom, and soon Lucy realizes that she is pregnant - just as her mother was at eighteen. With the help of her neighbour, Zach, Lucy learns about a terrifying curse that's been placed on her family: each Scarborough woman will give birth to a daughter at eighteen, and then go insane. With only a few months left until the birth of her own daughter, can Lucy unravel the curse and figure out how to break the spell, or will she end up like her mother - and all of the women who have gone before them?

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. After reading the plot summary, I wasn't sure how much fantasy to expect (while I'm trying to branch out more in my reading, I'm still not that used to reading fantasy books). But this one is grounded in reality, even though it quickly moves into fantastical territory. Some parts of the story went really quickly, as if they were being glossed over, but as a whole the book made sense according to its internal logic, and it was a fun read. It's a good book for people who like to crack puzzles, or who are interested in adaptions of folklore.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Alchemyst by Michael Scott