Review: Angelfall

Angelfall, by Susan Ee. The GoodReads summary:

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.

Although this book hasn’t seemed to have gained really widespread readership, the reviews I have seen for it have been really positive, so I was pretty excited for the chance to read it (thanks, Lan!). I knew going in that it probably wasn’t going to be my usual kind of book, so I was ready for that and I think it helped me like the book more than I might have otherwise, knowing my preferences.

First off, this is still only my second angel book that I’ve read, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but I thought the whole mythos and angel world was fascinating and really well done. I also loved that it combined dystopian with an angel story. Those two things wouldn’t necessarily seem to go together, but in this book they totally do and I loved it.

Penryn kicks butt. That’s all there is to it, really. She’s Tough, with a capital T, but she’s also insanely loyal. Sometimes it was a little hard for me to relate to her, because she was always fighting and refusing to back down in situations in which I totally would’ve been running away as fast as possible. But her actions definitely made the book more exciting, so I guess I can’t fault her that. Raffe was drop-dead gorgeous, and I’m probably in love. He’s also witty, so the hot + hilarious combo had me swooning pretty much from the beginning.

There were only two things that kinda bothered me about the book. The first is the lack of information we get about the angels and what’s going on with them. I know, as the reader, I’m only supposed to get as much information as Penryn knows (which is not much), but being the kind of reader I am, it drove me crazy. I like to know the whole backstory before going in, and I definitely didn’t get that here. I realize that’s totally a personal-preference problem, but still—it bugged me. The second thing that I didn’t like as much was the last few chapters of the book (the part when Penryn is in the lab). That lab was just so freaky and weird, and since we don’t get any explanation about what is going on and why, it just felt even freakier and weirder, and I was pretty much left thinking, What the eff?!?

Overall, if you’re a fan of dystopian/post-apocalyptic or angel books, I think this one is for you. I’m not big on either of those categories, so I didn’t fall quite as in love with it as I might have otherwise. But I can totally see why it got so many good reviews, so if it seems like it’s your thing, give this book a shot!

Rating: 3.5 / 5