It was your average, sucky, weekday morning. I woke up at 6:20am, brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes and walked to the station with Nancy. We waited a bit for Kenny, got on the train and I wedged myself into the window seat in preparation for the not-at-all-depressing 45 min ride to university. I took out my kindle, thinking that I would just do a bit of casual reading. Forty minutes later, as the train slowly pulled into Redfern and I waved goodbye to Kennancy, it dawned on me that I might have found my favourite book of the year.
The book was called
Angelfall. *insert dramatic music here*
Is that not the most simple but gorgeous cover that has ever been photoshopped in the history of Photoshop? Why can't all books look this nice? Why are things like this allowed to exist?
I have not had good experiences with books about angels. They are like the Regina George of the YA book world - lovely and sweet on the outside but claw-your-eyes-out nasty on the inside. This may or may not have something to do
this and
this.
Adding to this is the fact that Angelfall, according to some goodreads reviewers, is a self-published novel. What does self-published mean to you? Because to me, it means twilight fan fiction with a healthy dose of whips, chains and
ooh Mr Grey, you bring out my inner sex goddess(!!!)
And finally, the last YA novel I attempted to read was
Divergent and that was, to be honest, mediocre and wholly unsatisfying. (You could argue though that at times, Angelfall reads more like adult than young adult).
I gave Angelfall a try though because of its
stellar rating on goodreads and the fact that, get this, EVERY SINGLE REPUTABLE REVIEWER THAT I FOLLOW ON GOODREADS (who has read this book) GAVE IT A 4 STAR RATING OR HIGHER. The only other book where that has happened was
The Hunger Games back in, I don't even know - 2009?
Hello, if you are new to this blog, just know that I have a lot of feelings about stuff I like and when that happens, my posts become 98% gushing and 2% informational. Soz.
So Cynthia, when are you going to tell us what the fucking book is about??
I am really bad at explaining the plot of things. I will still try but you could also save yourself time and read the
goodreads description.
Angelfall starts dives right into the apocalyptic setting. We've got Penryn, a 17 year old who's trying to get her crippled sister and schizophrenic mother to safety. As a character, Penryn ranks all the way up there with Katniss in the kickass department. She has martial arts training, she's smart and she's got an immense will to live.
"I'm Penryn. I'm named after an exit off Interstate 80."
"Nice." They nod as if to say they understand what it's like to have parents like that.
The world she lives in has been overrun by angels and humanity has lost control of everything. The whole survival aspect of it is very much like
The Walking Dead. In fact, the gore factor is all the way up there with the TV show because dude, this shit (especially near the end) is FUCKED UP.
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Source)
"The streets have turned desolate and empty of people. We are out of the aerie district and in the demolished zone. Miles of burnt-out car husks and wrecked buildings flow by. The wind whips my hair around my face as we drive through the charred and broken skeleton of our world." - Penryn
While she's trying to get her family to safety, Penryn witnesses an angel falling from the sky. This angel is being attacked by group of his own people and Penryn watches as they brutally hack his wings off. By accident, she attracts the attention of the group and in the process of running for their lives, Penryn's sister is kidnapped. She is left with a missing family, a destroyed, dysfunctional society and a wingless angel by the name of Raffe. So shit basically hits the fan.
“Why were the other angels attacking you?"
"It's impolite to ask the victim of violence what they did to be attacked.”
It does sound rather corny when I try to summarise it but
Angelfall really is one of the most gripping novels I've read in a while. (I did finish it in a day.) All credit goes to Susan Ee's writing. You know how you can always tell from their writing, the intelligence level of a person? Well, ten pages into the book and I could already tell that Susan Ee wasn't gonna give me the typical wimpy, over-recycled, insta-love recipe that a lot of paranormal, young adult writers tend to do. So yay, high five Ms Ee! You are awesome and I like you (but please write faster).
I loved that the quest for Penryn was a worthwhile and believable one, I loved Penryn, and I loved Raffe in all his intense angel glory, and I loved that the book refused to be pinned down to one genre (it had everything: fantasy, horror, action, science fiction, romance, etc.) There was that aspect of unpredictability that
The Hunger Games had and that kept me flipping me pages even though I knew I should've stopped. See, I went into
The Hunger Games thinking, oh, this will be just another survivalist story but then all that stuff happened with the tribute's TV appearances and Peeta's confession and all of a sudden it was a book with a strong romance element to it and I was like, I don't even know what genre this is and in what direction everything is heading but I like it.
I never thought about it before, but I'm proud to be human. We're ever so flawed. We're frail, confused, violent, and we struggle with so many issues. But all in all, I'm proud to be a Daughter of Man. - Penryn
And the ending. Oh my god, I can't even absorb what happened it the last portion of the book since I spent most of it doing this:
I believe this book does not yet have the attention it deserves. Self-publishing does have its downfalls and it would seem a limited outreach is it. However, I think due to its success, it was eventually picked up by a major publisher and was only released to countries like the UK and Australia a few months ago. I have no doubt that it will soon blow up though (you can actually start to see it happen now) so hold on fandoms, cause the ride is just about to begin. Oh, and the film rights have been sold as well.
The Verdict
So in conclusion:
This is a good book, and I think y'all should read it.
P.S. Even though this book has restored my faith in young adult (if you could call it that) novels, I don't think I'll be continuing on with the category. Mainly because, I think I've reached the pinnacle with Angelfall, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, etc. so trying to find something else from the genre would feel like regressing.
P.P.S. This is the first 5 star read I've had in six months (according to goodreads). It looks like the streak was finally broken.
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