Review of Angelfall by Susan Ee

Title: Angelfall Author: Susan Ee Pages: 255 Publication Date: May 21st, 2011 Source: Purchased myself

Back Cover

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 

First Lines

"Ironically, since the attacks, the sunsets have been glorious."

In a Sentence

Angelfall was well-worth the $0.99 I paid for it. 

My Thoughts

Okay. I'm going to start this review by encouraging you guys to check out the "links" section at the end of this post. In addition to links to Goodreads and the author's website, I've also included links to where you can purchase an e-book of Angelfall for $0.99! You can also try the book out first by reading the first five chapters (which there's also a link for below). No, I don't get anything if you use my links. They're there for your convenience, and because I think 99 cents is well-worth it for what you get with Angelfall--an engaging, fast-paced read with a creative basis and a clever writing style. The book is also available in paperback, but it's not as cheap (I think the average price is somewhere around $9.99). 

I promised myself before I started writing this review that I wasn't going to turn this into a discussion about self-publishing. But I can't help at least mentioning it. Like many book bloggers, I've been burned by quite a few self-published books that I took a chance on. I hate that there's such a stigma against self-publishing, but I have to admit: it's there for a reason. Though I've read one or two good books that were self-published, the large majority have been poorly written, poorly edited, and had plots or characters that were poorly executed. But guys, I also want you to know this. If every self-published author wrote like Susan Ee, the self-publishing market would skyrocket. I can easily say that Angelfall is the best self-published book I've ever read. In fact, it's better than quite a few books I've read by traditionally published authors. So if the fact that Angelfall is self-published is what's keeping you from reading it, ignore it. This book is more than capable of competing with many of its traditionally published counterparts. Need more proof? Angelfall was chosen as one of seven finalists for the 2011 Fantasy and Science Fiction Cybils, among favorites like Anna Dressed in Blood and Blood Red Road. 

The world of Angelfall is a very creative one. The idea that the creatures many people view as harbingers of a kind, benevolent God are the ones who are destroying civilization is terrifying (though if you do your research, you'll realize that that popularly assumed belief about sweet and cuddly angels isn't really all that accurate). In fact, there's a beautiful scene near the beginning of the book that describes a graffitied drawing of an angel with the tag line Who will guard us from the guardians? I thought this was a beautiful example of what Ee is capable of doing with her writing, as well as a representation of the completely debilitated society that is now forced to live in constant fear. And rightly so, because these angels are terrifying. As the main character describes them:

"The thought of superhuman beings with human temptations and flaws sent a chill through me."

Umm..yeah, it would scare the crap out of me too. After all, we all remember what happened with the stories of the Greek gods. They weren't exactly sound in moral character and impervious to petty human emotions like jealousy and rage. When they got pissed, things went BOOM, and a similar sort of thing is happening with the angels in Angelfall. They have no regard for human lives. In fact, they like to prance around posh hotels making fun of the "monkeys" that they use for servants (and yes, monkeys is their not so endearing term for humans). 

When I first picked up this book, I was afraid that it would be chock full of the stereotypes frequently associated with the paranormal romance genre. And I do have to say that the main male character, Raffe, was pretty much the tall, mysterious, broody supernatural type. But this didn't seriously affect my enjoyment of the book because of the main character. A character like Penryn isn't so typical. She's trained in martial arts and all kinds of other buttkicking moves. She doesn't fall into the overcompensating-with my-physical-prowess-because-I'm-a-girl-and-have-to-prove-myself category, but you definitely do not want to get on her bad side. She's a feisty little thing with a strong sense of loyalty, and I enjoyed reading about the story from her point of view. 

Even though Raffe wasn't my favorite character ever, I didn't have too many problems reading about him, mainly because I enjoyed Ee's style of writing and way of handling things. For example, there was a lot of witty banter between Raffe and Penryn, and a few comical moments that made me warm up to Raffe a little. For example:

"He's downed four drinks in the short time it took for me to get myself together and find him. Either he's shaken by something or he's falling off the wagon hard and fast. Great. Just my luck to be partnered with an alcoholic angel."

Angelfall was a book that I debated back and forth between giving a three or a four, but I finally settled on four because, despite my somewhat indifferent attitude to Raffe, I whipped through the book extremely quickly and would consider it to be a fairly absorbing read. It was DEFINITELY worth the buck I paid for it, and I'd recommend it to readers looking for an engaging book!

Links

Add this book to your TBR list on Goodreads

Check out Susan Ee's website
Read the first five chapters for free.
Buy the e-book for $0.99. [Nook] [Kindle]

Not sure about this review? Compare our tastes in books. (Goodreads)

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