READING: Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Publication date: May 21st, 2011
Published by: Feral Dream
Genre: YA Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic, Angels
Rating: 5/5

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 have no idea how to start this review so I'm gonna get right to the point: the first 70 pages or so were good, but it was after that that the book's soul was really shown.

Honestly, I have never had so many of my friends telling me to read a particular book at the same time. And by "telling me" I mean "yelling at" me. After consulting several book sites and seeing readers' reactions to Angelfall, I said what the heck, I might as well read it and see what all the fuss is about.

Now I get it.

Angelfall is definitely not a conventional YA book. Susan Ee dared to cross the "politically correct" YA boundaries and create a fierce, blood-curdling world, where angels have brought the world as we know it to its knees and caused the eradication of most of its population. That got my attention from the get go. Angels, Godly creatures destroying the earth probably under God's orders? Talk about divine intervention! Definitely not the cookie cutter YA paranormal novel I was expecting. And I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint until the end.

Raffe and Penryn are the protagonists. Raffe is an angel and Penryn is a girl who is trying, along with her mother and her handicapped little sister, to survive in the wreck and havoc angel attacks left behind.

At first, I didn't know what to think of Raffe. Well, I had some thoughts but I didn't want to have them. Because they were *cough* kinda negative. Yeah, I know, impossible. Thing is, I thought he was the same smug jerk, six-pack/ broad shoulders ready to make every teen girl swoon-type of guy that regrettably lives in every YA book. Amazingly enough, while I was reading Angefall, I felt like I was experiencing Raffe's growing up, his gradually becoming serious and determined right before my eyes and I was so relieved my opinion of him had completely changed by the end.

As for Penryn, I liked her from the start. She is awesome (in the original sense of the word "awe") and admirable throughout the whole book.

I still don't know what to think of her mother, though. She was too paranoid on some occasions, at the point of schizophrenia, and too "motherly" and "sane" in others. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I felt her mental condition was somewhat inconsistent. Then again, she was paranoid. But sometimes it felt a little bit off to me.

Angelfall starts exactly the same way it ends. With a bang. With two amazing and incredibly intense and emotional scenes. First, we have the angel fight. I mean, what a way to start a book! I remember laying on my bed reading and I thought "OK, this is serious. We might have something here!"

As for the ending scene…well, I guess you'll have to read the book ;)

Grotesque and horrifyingly beautiful, Angefall will leave you raving for a long time after you finish it.

Read it. Now.