Impossible by Nancy Werlin

17-year-old Lucy Scarborough thinks the song "Scarborough Fair" is just some song her crazy birth mother sang as she wandered around town. Little did she know that her mother was actually trying to tell her something. All too late, when Lucy is raped and becomes pregnant, she realizes that song holds more meaning to it than just the random thoughts of a mad woman. The song holds significant meaning for the women of the Scarborough line. They are cursed to become pregnant and give birth to daughters at the age of 18, then fall into madness once the child is born. The curse will continue with each woman down the line, unless three seemingly impossible tasks are performed.


1) Make a magical shirt without any seems or needlework
2) Find an acre of land between the salt water and the sea strand
3) Plow the land with just a goat's horn and sow it all over with one grain of corn


Once Lucy realizes the true madness of the curse, she will do anything she can to protect her child. Lucy is fortunate, for she has support in this matter... something that the other women in her family may not have had. With the help of her foster parents and Zach, her friend since childhood, Lucy will tackle the tasks ahead and keep fighting up until the very last day.

This was a very curious read. The premise was quite interesting, basing the story on a song. The thought Nancy Werlin had to put into the story, to come up with ways to complete these nearly impossible tasks. I can't imagine what type of research she had to do to complete this story. After run-ins with Lucy's insane mother, Miranda, I wanted to cheer her on that much more to be able to finish the tasks. Not to mention the love and support that Lucy got from her foster parents and Zach, that just made you want her to break the curse and be happy.

The one thing I didn't like about this story was how it jumped around. Granted, I do not need to read about what happens EACH and EVERY day. I just would have liked to know what was going on in between it all, instead of jumping around every couple weeks and then suddenly, Lucy is 7 months pregnant. But, she was only 20 weeks a chapter ago, right??

3/5