Angelfall by Susan Ee – definitely not my thing

Title: Angelfall

Author: Susan Ee

Genre: paranormal/apocalyptic YA

Length: 283 pages

Published by: Amazon? I think? It was originally self-published.

Source: library

Blurb:

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

 

I mean, I didn’t hate it.

But I also didn’t like it. Which is sad because SO MANY PEOPLE raved about it, about how it was one of their favourite books. Darn that subjectivity again.

There are a few main reasons why I didn’t like it.

Plot direction

For the most part, I didn’t know where it was going. It went in circles fairly often. I mean, okay, Penryn is trying to save her sister – sure. But that journey really only happened at the end of the book, with the middle bogged down in details about the resistance, and fights that had no real purpose.

Related to that, I also had trouble with the world-building. It was under-explained. Now, I think that’s better than OVER-explaining, at least (nobody likes an info-dump) but not by much. Why were the angels there? What was their purpose? How did this happen?

I feel like these things might be explained in the next book, but since I won’t be reading it I was left lacking a clear sense of what was happening in this world.

 

Violence. And gore. Which is my fault.

I wouldn’t call myself a squeamish person, exactly. But I’m not  a fan of violence/gore. I don’t watch horror movies, and usually in action movies I close my eyes when the blood starts being shed. So yeah, I’m a wuss. In BOOKS, though, I don’t normally mind.

In this book I did. Some parts are pretty graphic, and in one particular case I legitimately felt like throwing up.

So you could say that definitely hindered my enjoyment of this book 😛 but that is not the fault of the book. That is my fault.

 

Meh love interest

He just didn’t do it for me. He was pretty funny, sometimes, but as a love interest, Raffe just didn’t seem to have any chemistry with Penryn. Which begs the question, WHY do we need a love interest in every YA book?

I’ll never know.

 

There were SOME redeeming factors.

For example, I liked Penryn’s love towards her sister.

I liked the sarcastic banter between Penryn and Raffe.

I liked the descriptions of Penryn’s mum and her…well, her insanity.

 

Overall, though?

 

 

Rating: 2/5 Wonderkitties

Have you read any books recently that didn’t live up to the hype?