Angelfallby Susan Ee
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0761463275
Series: Penryn End of Days #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2012
Pages: 284
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Skyscape
I think this is a 4 star read. I reserve the right to change my rating after the story has settled in a bit. It’s certainly one that will stay with me for awhile.
I find Angel mythologies fascinating. Paradoxically, I rarely read fiction involving Angels, because I’m rather picky. Most fiction I’ve run across involving angels portray them as pure, pull of love. Automatons, or more kindly, one-dimensional and without free-will. Being raised in a rather old-school but highly academic Catholic environment (firmly team Evolution here) I grew up hearing my mother tell of the battles the Angels raged, and how ultimately, one angel built his army and chose to stand against God. Angelfall indeed.
I hadn’t even heard of Angelfall until I started seeing all the reviews on Booklikes talking about what an excellent story it told. I read the synopsis and thought ‘Oh, this sounds good, but wait – Post-Apacolyptic? No, thanks, not a fan’. But still the reviews came and I got intrigued.
I’ll say this: the story sucked me in well and truly. So many elements of it disturbed me, especially towards the end, obviously. I prefer not to be disturbed, generally speaking. I also felt like the ending veered rather sharply away from UF and stuck it’s toe into Science Fiction, which I’m also not a fan of. But sucked in and firmly hooked I was. To the point of cranky snappishness whenever I was forced to stop reading for mundane things, like, say, eating.
I’ll not cover old, worn out ground by providing a synopsis. I’m not going to gush about the characters either since I feel oddly ambivalent about most all of them except Josiah. And, I guess, Raffe. Ee wrote a tragic character there, but one I found myself invested in.
Again, I think I’ll have to let the story sit with me for awhile. The ending just got a little too weird for me. I’ll definitely be reading the next one though. Well and truly hooked.