Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1)
by Susan Ee
Genre:
Angels/Apocalypse
Reading Grade: Young
Adult
Publication Date: May
21, 2011
Source: Kindle purchase
Age Rating: 15+
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'm experimenting with
a different way of writing my reviews. Maybe breaking down the most
important aspects of the story will keep my reviews more informative.
Hopefully, this will be fun for me as well as more beneficial to my
readers...
My Review
- Plot: There actually is one (big plus for me), although it's nothing groundbreaking. Penryn needs to rescue her crippled little sister from the bad invading angels who have taken her away, and needs a wingless angel that she saves to help locate her. They have many fun (for the reader) distractions along the way. There's not much romance, but that works better for me, actually. Penryn and Raffe (the wingless angel) didn't bond as much as I felt they should have to justify his obvious attachment to her by the end. I needed more niceties between the two, but they do have chemistry.
- Characters: Penryn is a great YA character and really knows her fighting skills. She's tough and she's proactive, thinking only ever of saving her little sister. Raffe is so sarcastic and yummy in the first half, but that all vanishes during the second half for someone unknown reason. Penryn's crazy mother is such a mystery, always showing up wherever Penryn is, like a feral cat stalking her. Why this is never gets explained, and it's kind of creepy, but good creepy.
- Writing: The writing is definitely decent—professional-grade. No flowery words or purple prose, and that's just perfect for this type of story. The YA voice is convincing, too, as the story is told through Penryn's first-person present tense narration.
- Storytelling: The story takes you on this wild and bizarre journey through a gutted apocalyptic San Francisco, full of incredibly well-detailed and intense fight scenes, amongst other things. Very impressive. One fight scene in particular made me feel like my throat had been whacked a bunch of times because of the vivid physicality of the fighting. Amazing.
- Overall Quality: I believe this is a self-published title, but you'd never know it. It's so very professional and high quality!
- Favorite Moment/Scene: The kiss scene... Oh. My. Lord. It is amazing, and I am rarely impressed by kiss scenes, but this one blew me away. It is totally out-of-nowhere and made me blink a lot. A lot. And, made me think about it as I drifted off to sleep the same night I read it.
- My Score: 4.5/5 stars. (I really like this. Can't wait for book 2!)
