Book Review: Stork, by Wendy Delsol

In Delsol’s take on the paranormal, certain human women are storks. That is, they decide who will get to have babies. Stork is creative, interesting, and kept me wondering throughout the book.

Very early in the book Katla visits the fabric store across from her grandfather’s store and meets Hulda, the proprietor, who takes her to the basement where she is revealed to be a stork. She meets several other women (all very old) who also have this gift.

Katla has recently moved from California to Minnesota since her parents divorced, and this is her mother’s home. So Kat is trying to fit in, but she always feels like something strange is going on (besides the stork thing.) She’s attracted to Jack, but he’s very hard to read. One day he flirts, and the next he acts like he wants nothing to do with Kat. Then there’s Wade, who for me, was one of the most confusing fictional characters I’ve ever read. It all makes sense in the end, but it takes a while.

That was the only complaint I had with this book. There were certain times I had to re-read a paragraph or two because I got confused. Things just jumped into the plot very quickly and then were left. The biggest example of this was the two paragraphs where Kat describes an uncomfortable encounter with Wade at an abandoned quarry in the back of his car after a couple of beers (pp. 35-36.) This turns out to be an important event that is referred to several times during the remainder of the book, and when it was first mentioned again, I had to go back and read this passage. It just didn’t seem that significant, the way it was thrown into the middle of other things. This happened a few more times, but wasn’t enough to make me want to stop reading.

I loved the current cultural references and Kat’s humor. “Minnesota-nice, or whatever you want to call it, was like Michael Kors at Macy’s: the more you offer it to just anybody, the more it loses its appeal” (p. 42).

Or, speaking of her dad in relationship to Stanley, her mother’s new boyfriend: “Still, I couldn’t help but think that my dad was a big drink of life, whereas Stanley was a sip, as in insipid” (p. 60).

I got many more chuckles out of Kat’s narration as well. The relationship she develops with Penny is authentic and distinctive. This one has an exciting, dangerous climax, and the major trauma is resolved. However, I’m curious enough about what we learn at the end of the book to want to pick up Frost (Oct 11), the next in the series.

Give this to your paranormal romance fans. No love triangle in this one, which some may find refreshing. There’s nothing that would prevent younger teens from reading and enjoying this one too.

Published by Candlewick, 2010

Copy obtained from the library

357 pages (qualifies for my 350 Page Book Challenge!)

Rating: 4/5

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