Published: May 23rd 2013 by Hodder and Stoughton (first published May 21st 2011)
Number of Pages: 326 Pages (Paperback)
Series: Yes, #1 in the Penryn & the end of Days Trilogy
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. (goodreads.com)
"I cannot stand angel books" is what I usually say when anyone even as much as mentions them to me, yet for some reason I bought Angelfall a while back, probably at some point last year. Ever since I joined the book community I kept on hearing about this book, about how good it is despite having angels, yet it took me years to finally give it a try. I did not regret it.
Angelfall is action packed and extremely addictive! I had no idea what to expect when I picked this one up, all I knew was that it contained evil angels and that's it, and I think that was definitely a good thing, going in more or less blind.
In Angelfall the angels have come down to earth to eradicate humanity in what can only be described as the apocalypse. But, what they didn't expect was that humanity isn't quite willing to give up their planet and lives just that easily.
“I never kid about my warrior demigod status."
"Oh. My. God." I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. "You are nothing but a
bird with an attitude. Okay, so you have a few muscles, I’ll grant you that. But you
know, a bird is nothing but a barely evolved lizard. That’s what you are.”
Throughout this trilogy we follow Penryn, a kick ass protagonist who is trying to save her sister while surviving the apocalypse. I really like Penryn because she has a personality, really feels like a three dimensional character with realistic thoughts and feelings, not a Mary Sue at all. I love how much she is willing to do, how far she is willing to go to save her sister, the fact that this was her highest priority through the entire book and not just flashing through from time to time. Furthermore I really liked her feelings toward Raffe, the fact that she didn't miraculously change her mind two pages after meeting him and didn't suddenly forget the fact that she hates angels.
Raffe is an amazing character. He's an angel but his wings have been cut off so his highest priority was to get them sewn back on, even if that means making a deal with Penryn and traveling with her. Their relationship was incredibly funny and their arguments brilliant to follow. On one side I really wanted them to be together, yet at the same time I really liked the fact that there was barely any romance in this book, which was truly refreshing.
“A sense of humor is one more thing I don't think angels should have.
The fact that his sense of humor is corny makes it even more wrong.”
This book has lots and lots of action, something I appreciated a lot. Ms. Ee's writing is extremely addictive and her characters and descriptions are fantastic. I liked how different all of them were, how interesting all of them seemed, not just extras thrown in to help the protagonist solve some problem.
What I usually didn't like about angel books, besides the sole fact that they have angels, was their story and their reasons for coming down to earth. This wasn't the case with Angelfall. I loved learning more about the angels, about their ways and reasons to come down and cause an apocalypse. It really seemed well thoughtout and didn't feel like something made up in five minutes. I enjoyed the fact that we slowly learned all of it, and not all at once, making it more interesting and suspenseful.
The ending was on point and made me order the sequel in a matter or seconds because I simply had to know what would happen next!
All in all I was very pleasantly surprised by Angelfall. It showed me that there are authors out there who are able to write really amazing angel books filled with action and fun. If you're like me, not a fan of angels, this is definitely the book to go if you want to give them another chance.
I give Angelfall by Susan Ee 5 out of 5 stars.
