Book Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee

To summarize:  This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world in which angels have come to earth and basically demolished everything and everyone.  Not a lot of people remain, and those who do are left to scavenge for themselves while steering clear of marauding scary angels.  And the angels are kidnapping children for some secret, sinister purpose.  The main character, Penryn, has a younger sister, Paige, who is disabled and is taken away by the angels.  To try to rescue her sister, Penryn forms an unlikely alliance with an angel who has himself borne the brunt of his fellow angels' cruelty.

And now, my thoughts on this novel.

This book has it all:

• A psychotic mother who stabs gang members in the chest with butter knives and then draws a pentagram on them with pink lipstick?  Check.  And who may or may not have been the cause of her younger daughter’s paralysis?  Check.  (And yikes!)
• Angels, angels, and more angels.  They come in all sizes and colors.  Some are even tiger-striped.  And they carry off children, bringing them home to roost in their…aeries?  Like big, freaky humanoid multi-colored eagles.  Or something.

Stephenie Meyer would be proud:

To Susan Ee’s credit, she did manage to make it ¼ of the way through this book before she started channeling Twilight.  But when she does, she dives right in:

“Then warmth envelopes me.  Firm muscles embrace me from the space where the cushions used to be.  I’m groggily aware of masculine arms wrapping themselves around me, their skin soft as a feather, their muscles steel velvet.”

The word “velvet” cropped up a couple more times, which I thought was unfortunate (Stephenie Meyer has forever ruined that word for me!), but I did appreciate that Ee made the romantic tension a more gradual thing, rather than the “instant connection” that’s so pervasive in YA lit these days.

Seriously though, jokes aside, this was actually a really good book.  Because it’s gotten so much hype on Amazon, and because it comes from an independent publisher (although I publish through Create Space myself), I was a bit skeptical.  Other independent books I’ve downloaded from Amazon have been poorly written and serious need of editing.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well-written this book was.

The story was very engaging.  It got a little slow at parts, but at the end things got REALLY crazy. 

One thing I really liked about this book is the way Ee portrays good and evil.  Unlike a lot of books, the lines are very blurry here—the characters predominantly fall in that gray area between, which is how it is in real life.  Good people do bad things and bad people do good things.  And a lot of the characters themselves are hybrids.  I love how Ee subtly uses this to question not only the definitions of “good” vs. “evil,” but also to show how you can’t put people (or angels) in a specific box. 

This book has so many layers.  Ee even manages to weave in a satirical indictment of how reliant our current society is technology.

Ee does a good job with character development, especially Penryn.  As the story unravels, you can really see Penryn having to adapt to her surroundings, open her mind, and grow as a character. 

So why are the angels here, suddenly wreaking mass destruction on earth?

This is the big question.  As it turns out, the angels themselves don’t have a clue and would like an answer as well.

If you liked this book, you might also enjoy reading:  Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, Blue Bloods by Melissa DeLaCruz

Casting Call (just because):
As I read this, I tried to picture who I could see playing these roles if this book were made into a movie.  Here's what I came up with:

Ian Smolderhotter, I mean Somerhalder, as Raffe…for obvious reasons.

 

I’m kind of liking Troian Bellisario for Penryn.  I don’t know.  She’s got that scrawny underfed look but she’s also really spunky.  I’d love to see her doing something action-y instead of just being uptight and paranoid and well, a liar.

And wouldn't the two of them be fun together?  I think so.