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.

Book Review: Bones Are Forever by Kathy Reichs

I'd planned to cover Angelfall by Susan Ee as my first book review on this newly revamped blog.  And while I still promise to do that, I have to say a few words about Kathy Reichs' latest monstrosity, er, novel because I feel morally obligated to spare other readers the pain of experiencing this book.

Normally, I’m a fan of Kathy Reichs.  I’ve read all of her other books and really enjoyed most of them.  Until now.

The thing I like most about the Temperance Brennan novels is the amount of time spent detailing Brennan’s work as a forensic anthropologist.  The information she learns from the bones is what makes her unique and interesting, and consequently, is what really makes or breaks these books.  I think that was the main problem with this one: very little time was devoted to Brennan spending time with the bones.  Instead, she spends most of her time chasing a quarry all over Canada (a quarry who turns out to be mentally challenged, yet manages to outsmart Brennan, Ryan, and their Royal Mountie friend for quite some time).

Another problem I had with this book was the love triangle.  The on-again, off-again relationship between Brennan and Ryan has gotten tedious at this point, so Reichs decided to spice it up a bit by throwing in a second guy.  Great, just what this series needed.  Not.  And as usual, at the end of the book, Brennan had still made zilch progress romantically, despite the fact that she’s apparently the type of gal no guy will ever get over.

Which bring me to my next point.  I’m by no means a feminist, yet by the time I finished reading this book, I was somewhat offended by Reichs’ portrayal of female characters.  (Her heroine excepted, of course, who is such hot stuff that guys are always fighting over her!)  Brennan ragged on the physical appearance of practically every other woman she met in this book.  Most of the women she encountered were prostitutes, some of them mentally challenged, forced into a horrible lifestyle because they felt they had no other options.  They're deserving of pity, and instead of being sympathetic, Brennan's looking at them thinking about how very white-trash they are, or how fat they are (because apparently anyone who weighs more than 100 lbs. is basically obese), or how leathery their skin is, or how skanky their clothes are.  Really nice, Brennan. 

 

And since I get the vibe that Brennan is basically just Reichs herself with a fake name, I'm kind of disgusted with this woman's inflated opinion of herself.

But I think the biggest problem for me was the sheer implausibility of the plot.  It began with the discovery of several sets of bones, which turned out just to be a side-plot in the tale of a much bigger conspiracy that eventually got so convoluted and honestly, uninteresting, that I ended up not really caring at all.  I didn’t care about diamonds or drug dealers!  I wanted to know the story behind those bones, which Reichs finally wrapped up for me as an aside in the space of about a paragraph tacked on at the end. 

And of course, as in every Temperance Brennan novel, Good Ole Tempe manages to get herself kidnapped at the end.  You would think one of these days she would wise up and learn to recognize a trap when she sees one, or at least develop the good sense to call and give Ryan a head's-up before she willingly walks into said trap.  But alas, some people never learn.

And having said all that, I may have had my fill of Temperance Brennan.  The TV show got so implausible I quit watching midway through last season, and we'll see if I even crack open the next book.  Doubtful.