Stork

Wendy Delsol

He was working himself into a lather, which I hoped he’d at least use to clean the grime from under his fingernails.

This is the story of Katla LeBlanc.  It starts off with her moving back to her mother’s hometown in Minnesota after a divorce from her father.  While working at her grandfather’s –affectionately named afi– store, she meets Jack Snjosson, who swears that they have met before and she should know him.  Katla learns about the Stork Society and what it means for the members.  She attends high school and makes some friends/enemies there.  There is some mystery in this tale and it is hard to determine at times who the good people are and who the bad are.  There are many twists and turns in the plot to where you cannot guess what is going to happen.  At the Homecoming Dance, when everything is revealed, I would not have guessed the ending.

Uh, excuse me ma’am, but you smell like dried unicorn dung, so I’m going to beam a hovering soul into you.  It’s a girl, by the way.  She’s going to like butterflies and be lactose-intolerant.  Congratulations!

The Goodreads synopsis:

Family secrets. Lost memories. And the arrival of an ancient magical ability that will reveal everything.

Sixteen-year-old Katla LeBlanc has just moved from Los Angeles to Minnesota. As if it weren’t enough that her trendy fashion sense draws stares, Katla soon finds out that she’s a Stork, a member of a mysterious order of women tasked with a very unique duty. But Katla’s biggest challenge may be finding her flock at a new school. Between being ignored by Wade, the arrogant jock she stupidly fooled around with, and constantly arguing with gorgeous farm boy and editor-in-chief Jack, Katla is relieved when her assignment as the school paper’s fashion columnist brings with it some much-needed friendship. But as Homecoming approaches, Katla uncovers a shocking secret about her past — a secret that binds her fate to Jack’s in a way neither could have ever anticipated. With a nod to Hans Christian Andersen and inspired by Norse lore, Wendy Delsol’s debut novel introduces a hip and witty heroine who finds herself tail-feathers deep in small-town life.

Only sold in twos?  What, do they have a bouncer at the door checking?  Couples’ police?  Ark Patrol?  This was one boat that definitely needed rocking.

This story made me laugh so many times.  There are so many more quotes that I wanted to put on here, but I had to restrain myself.  Wendy Delsol definitely played up the humor in this book.  It makes the book flow more evenly.  When “abnormal” things happen to “normal” people, humor is a good way to deal with the pressure.  I love how you get the sense of what Kat is saying and what she is thinking at the same time.  This gives her more depth as a character, you can understand some of the things she does and makes her appear more of a high-school aged person.

My paranoia of the cold, was, I discovered, transferable: frigiphobia by proxy.

When things get bad, the bad go to bed.