BOOK REVIEW: ANGELFALL (Young Adult / Science Fiction & Fantasy) by Susan Ee
RATING: 5 STARS (out of 5)
I noticed ANGELFALL on someone's list in my Goodreads group and decided to download it. In one word: AMAZING! I read it in about 5 hours, since it was impossible to put down. Honestly, I don’t say that often.
ANGELFALL is the first book in a five-book Young Adult series taking place in post-apocalyptic Silicon Valley after the world has been attacked by angels. Yes, I said angels. Forget any visions of God’s loving messengers and replace them with angels who are the enemies and exterminators of humankind.
After seventeen year-old girl Penryn Young witnesses an angel attacked, his wings cut off, and left for dead by a group of his angelic brethren, her seven year-old paraplegic sister, Paige, is snatched and carried away by another avenging angel.
Penryn believes her only chance of getting Paige back is by saving the dying angel, and bargaining his wings back to him for an escort into the angel stronghold in burnt-out San Francisco. Add to her list of problems, a schizophrenic mother who seems to enjoy desecrating corpses in amusing ways and a bunch of razor-toothed cannibals.
The story moves from the word ‘go'. The tension created between seventeen year-old Penryn and Raffe, the angel with whom she ends up in an unholy alliance, is well-done and believable without either of them coming across annoying or obnoxious. The dialogue is smart and engaging. I love YA, but tend to find some of the protagonists either whiny or too mature for their years. Not the case here. The goals and motivations are clear and compelling for both characters and their relationship grows naturally into mutual caring and despite everything—a forbidden chemistry. However, the focus of the story is not the romance, but rather a brilliantly drawn plot that provides lush imagery to give the reader an invitation into both the world of angels and post-apocalyptic San Francisco. And a scary place it is…
One area mentioned in other reviews that I agree with: backstory on the how the actual apocalypse unfolded and what actually happened to all the people would have been helpful and was noticeably missing. Although editors tend to frown on adding too much backstory, this went too far on the sparse side.
However, that said — move over Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins, this series could EASILY be the next Divergent or Hunger Games franchise. Not that the books are the same by any stretch, but they do carry the same ‘flavor'.
I will be following this author and her series going forward…
