The Plaid Pladd

When I first saw this book, I was not expecting to have to pull out my Signs You Are Reading Twilight list again. First of all, the cover is not in the “something dramatic on black” school of YA lit cover art, but more the opposite:

I don't like the way she's looking at me

I’d read a sentence about it on the library’s new book blog which essentially was “Teenage girl discovers she has Ancient Norse pregnancy powers!” That sounded way too weird and original to be another Twilight, right? Wrong. As it turns out, we’re really having to reach now to find mythical creatures to make “romantic”/lame.

Here’s the Sitch:
Katla is forced by her parents’ divorce to move from L.A. back to her mom’s hometown of Norse Falls, Minnesota and she is not happy about it. Then she discovers she’s part of the Stork Society, a group of old women who have the magical powers to decide what receptive woman in town should be the mother of baby souls that come to them in dreams. Yay? Plus, Love Interest is a broody farm boy who *spoiler* can control the weather. Sort of.

Thirteen Signs that the Book you are reading is, in fact, Twilight

1. Secret Mythical Creature: One-upped. Katla has her whole secret pregnancy powers going on, and her guy Jack is really one of the “Winter People” who don’t feel cold, meaning he can conveniently walk around without a shirt in the Minnesota winter. Also he’s a reincarnation of Jack Frost whose emotions affect the weather. The book treats this as a gigantic surprise ending even though it has been obvious the whole time.

2. Secret Mythical Creature Kind of Lamer than usual and given weird sparkly attributes: The way to call a super secret meeting of the Pregnancy Magic Society, is to scratch your head. Then you and all the other members will develop a gross head rash. With boils. It’s a mystical signal, you guys! Also, Jack is nearly killed by someone holding fire near him.

3. Love at first sight: Jack describes his first sight of her, when he is twelve and she is eleven, as like being “hit with a bolt of lightning”. Katla is just kind of “eh” about him.

4. Star-crossed lovers: For most of the book Jack and Katla have a weird angry-obsessive relationship I thought would turn into Mythical Star Crossed Lovers, but it turns out it’s just because she has amnesia about this time when they were 11 and both almost drowned in a frozen lake. Way to disappoint, book. Also, she hates the cold and he is like an ice creature so there’s that.

5. Over-described hot guy: This aspect was definitely not as bad as in Twilight etc. Or maybe I just skipped over those parts through boredom.

6. Guy who is “too dangerous” and tells girl to stay away from him repeatedly: This time it’s Katla’s mom telling her to stay away from Jack, which again, turned out to be that she didn’t want Katla remembering the traumatic ice drowning incident, not because Jack is a weather-controlling freak.

7. Weird Culty Family: The only weird cult going on is the Stork Society and the whole itchy head thing.

8. Obligatory Human Friend the Protagonist Uses But Mostly Ignores: Her name is Penny and Katla gives her a makeover since, like all of Norse Falls, she is fashion brain dead. At least, according to Katla. Eventually she learns that she shouldn’t be such a bitch about designer clothing, but for most of the book she is secretly thinking how lame Penny is, despite Penny being her only friend.

9. Having to hold yourself back while making out for fear that Morality will manifest as real life danger: Jack and Katla touch three times in the first half of the book and each time she feels like an icy chill has seeped through her veins! The last time, an extended touch in which he’s carrying her, feels like she’s dying! This, again, turns out to be related to her repressed drowning memories. After she remembers, the phenomenon obligingly goes away.

10. Everything that looks like action turns out to be boring: Katla does remain surprisingly ineffectual despite being attacked by a bear and almost killed as a sacrifice to Norse gods. Her main action is to scream for help so that her sister Storks can come to the rescue. Also, she pulls a Bella and faints.

11. No Plot until the last 50 pages: Yeah, so, as noted, all of the “eerie” things about Norse Falls/Jack get explained by the drowning-amnesia deal. Then it was like the author suddenly remembered she was writing a book about supposedly supernatural teens and had the school jock turn out to be an evil Raven who tries to kill Katla and Jack on prom night at the end.

12. Controlling, abusive relationships: They’re pretty okay, actually, if you discount how often Jack has to save her from things like blisters and her own stupidity.

13. Writing style: 7th grade fanfiction: In the plotting more than the actual writing.

Bonus #14. Moving to a New Town of Emoness: Check! I’ve realized this is a common theme in a lot of YA lit, Twilight copycats especially because it’s an easy way to introduce the supernatural. Katla is especially bitchy and emo about it because HOW can Minnesota live up to her beautiful L.A.?

Twilight score: 9/14