Another Courtney Summers that could have gotten a 4-5 star rating from me but then it lacked so much when it comes to grounding works. How the hell diAnother Courtney Summers that could have gotten a 4-5 star rating from me but then it lacked so much when it comes to grounding works. How the hell did the zombies come to existence? ...more
Ahm, what happened, Susan? End of Days made me feel like it was written by another author. The characters are still wonderful Actual Rating: 3.5 stars
Ahm, what happened, Susan? End of Days made me feel like it was written by another author. The characters are still wonderful but I couldn't say the same thing about the plot....more
Books like Angelfall are one the few reasons why readers shouldn’t give up on reading paranormal storie This review first appeared on Thoughts and Pens
Books like Angelfall are one the few reasons why readers shouldn’t give up on reading paranormal stories and picking up self-published books. The journey might be taxing but once you come across stories like Angelfall, all those hitches you’ve passed by will be greatly compensated. It is amazingly unique and greatly depicts Susan Ee’s superb devotion to the genre.
Rather than being your typical fluffy angel read wherein you daydream about being saved by a chiselled, glowing, haloed, creature of goodness; Angelfall will deliver you straight to a world of macabre and horror where angels are the warlords of blood and suffering. There will be no escape from it and the only thing you can do is to accompany Penryn and Raffe in their gruelling journey.
The first thing that I love about Angelfall is that it started strong. I was immediately thrust into an action filled scenario that got my adrenaline pumping. And the main characters immediately stood out to me. Penryn and Raffe are perhaps one of the oddest pair that you would stumble upon in Ee’s world of apocalypse but oh boy, they are a perfect match made in heaven. They have equal levels of bad-assery, arrogance, loyalty, ambitiousness and cunning. They’re two creatures who know what they want and wouldn’t rest until they get it. I SHIP THEM! I TOTALLY SHIP THEM, dammit!
And don’t get me started about the secondary characters. Penryn’s mom is a curious subject with her schizophrenia disorder. I am not an expert on it but based on my reading, Susan’s portrayal of the disease is almost realistic. However, her tendency towards violence is something that is subject for debate because schizophrenics are socially withdrawn and are more likely to hurt themselves than those around them. Another character that caught my attention was Paige. Heaven knows how I struggled not to kill the bastards who made her into a monster. Uriel and his cronies should be the ones sporting the devil’s wings and suffer eternal punishment in Hell for what they did. Grrrr.
Another asset of Angelfall is its fantastic world-building. The future Northern California is a perfect picture of anarchy and melancholy. The destruction felt authentic without resorting to terrible info dumps. It was scary with Ee’s talent of manipulating the book’s atmosphere to become dark and chilling.
Angelfall’s plot is also a gem. It’s an apocalyptic story laced with a seraphic mythos and sci-fi elements. Further to that, there’s a political intrigue amongst the angels here which is quite surprising. I mean, angels are supposed to be busy with fighting the Devil’s spawns but Angelfall tells us again that it’s not one of those riffraff books that failed to provide a concrete foundation about angelic community. For all their honourable reputations, angels are scheming, malicious bastards. There’s so much going on in this book that it’s hard to put down.
The only downside that I can point about Angelfall is that it has a huge parallelism with The Hunger Games in terms of plot driver. Everything that happened in THG was triggered because Katniss was uberly loyal to her sister. And her actions set things in motion that eventually led her to become the symbol of the rebellion. And here in Angelfall, our young heroine’s exploits are also the product of her relentless need to protect and save her sister. However, I was just glad that Paige’s role is more than that of Prim’s. And thus, I am willing to overlook the said likeness.
To conclude, Angelfall is not your average angel book. It exudes a sinister aura that will certainly make a great masochist out of a reader. Yes, it is painful…it is full of corruption…it is carnage contained in a book but despite all that, you will choose to read it… you will choose to endure.
This was certainly a refreshing read though wasn't convinced with Janelle's attraction to Ben. This was certainly a refreshing read though wasn't convinced with Janelle's attraction to Ben. ...more
As you probably know, I am greatly enthralled with Angelfall’s greatness that I hastened to read World AThis post first appeared on Thoughts and Pens.
As you probably know, I am greatly enthralled with Angelfall’s greatness that I hastened to read World After immediately. It was an impulsive action that I regretted immediately because I didn’t love this book as much as the first book. Perhaps my emotions were still unstable to feel anything for World After. Or maybe, it was because a large portion of World After became something out of your generic dystopian story.
The plot seemed too long-winded with Penryn and her family trying to survive while living under Obi’s command. There was a lot of running and chasing and hiding that it became tiring. Good thing that it still managed to stay afloat by addressing some of the immediate questions in Angelfall. Things got darker as some hideous revelations came out. Some of the scenes became gorier. But it felt like, it just maintained the whole story to provide a bridge for book 3 and it didn’t really offer anything mindblowing unless you count what happened in the end.
In World After, we will see a lot of Penryn coming to terms with Paige’s hideousness, desperately suppressing her feelings for Raffe and trying to protect her family. Though I admire her unwavering streak for heroism, I am undeniably annoyed with her futile attempts to develop her combat prowess further. Raffe’s sword gave her a lot of opportunity to learn but she kind of failed. Most of the time, it was Paige or her mother or Cara who came to get her out of tight situations. I’ve seen so little of her badassery in this book.
On the contrary, my disappointment with Penryn didn’t extend to Paige and her mother. I got to know Paige more and how my heart ached for her…for what she went through. But despite all the things that were done to her, she’s showing more balls than her sister. Bravo, little one! The same can be said for their mother. In here, I found myself warming up to the paranoid schizophrenic. Yes, she’s crazy…creepy and all that but I just adore her survival instincts and her devotion to Paige and Penryn. In her own manic way, she showed the world how it is to be a kick ass mom.
As for Raffe, he’s still amazing as ever even if he joined the game really late. I love his sarcastic humor, I love how he steadfastly uphold his millennia old principles even if it’s driving him mad silently. I know he wants to be with Penryn but his head and iron will wouldn’t let him. It would be interesting, perhaps mindblowing, to see the moment when he gives in to Penryn’s allure. Bahahahaha.
Overall, World After proved to be a fitting sequel for Angelfall despite its sluggish pace and so little presence of our seraphic warrior. The ending was absolutely awesome and it perfectly set the stage for more electrifying things to come in Book 3. I hope Susan Ee would be considerate enough to release it this year.
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