Angelfall by Susan Ee Review

Angelfall (Penryn and the End of Days #1), by Susan Ee
Publication: May 23, 2013, by Hodder and Stoughton
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian, Romance, Paranormal
Pages: 326
Format: Paperback
Source: Gifted
Rating: 

It's been six weeks since the angels of the apocalypse destroyed the world as we know it. Only pockets of humanity remain. 
Savage street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. 
When angels fly away with a helpless girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back...

Hype, especially looking at it these days is such a big thing. I find that I always get so excited to read a book that everyone's raving about and I won't stop being so anxious until I actually go for it. And actually, Angelfall really showed me that hype isn't always correct and every book isn't for everyone.

Dystopians and science-fictions can be so mainstream and overly used all the time. The same concepts can be found all over the place, no matter what letter of the alphabet you begin to search the book under. For once, an author has given us a new experience that I haven't been in before. The uniqueness and diversity that I saw throughout this novel was stupendous, and I definitely wouldn't give away my experience for anything else, though there were some weaknesses. Angels in an apocalypse who are destroying the world? That's pretty awesome, and it's not like the end of the world is happening in one short day—it goes longer than that, and it's just something that's taking some time to progress and become new.

Okay, I admit that I wasn't ready for a big catastrophic boom where everything went out of hand, to be honest. Ee's pacing was slow, but I can tell you that it worked for this novel, and it all began when the apocalypse of angels (not zombies, thank goodness) has hit the Earth and all that there's left are sore survivors and killers... some who are even transforming into a pure cannibal. Everyone sees that it's best and the most productive to work and run away at night where the gangs have a lesser chance to beat people up. Penryn is a hard-working girl who's always there for her mother and sister, and she knows that she's have to find them when her sister is taken away by the angels... right into the sky. Little does she know that she will fall in love.

Fall in loooooveeeee with Raffeeeeeeeeeee.... I can't even tell you that that's some kind of spoiler because we all saw that coming, why can we even go on with this review any longer if you're against this? Yeah, they were adorable *makes googly eyes* but um, I hadn't fell for the predictability. I then kept questioning if this is a novel that is made for those who hadn't ever given a book like this a chance before. And hey, we have angels with wicked names and like Gabriel. Every 'angelic' novel has to base its concept and form out of the real religious allegorical stuff, I tell you.

"I have the absurd impulse to apologize. What, exactly, am I sorry for? That his people have attacked our world and destroyed it? That they are so brutal as to cut off the wings of one of their own and leave him to be torn apart by the native savages? If we are such savages, it is only because they have made us so. So I am not sorry, I remind myself."

If you look at the three quotes in total that I have pulled out of this story, you'll surely see that they're all found out in the first half of the novel. And that first half was the good half. I probably would've given it a 4 star rating if the rest of the book remained the same way, but then it got worse as the pacing went on and the plot kept on going. What I thought would happen and would progress went the opposite, but I wasn't impressed at all.

The ending sucked, the rescue of Paige that we all saw coming sucked, and the writing didn't seem to interest me at all. This all happened in the second half of the novel, and throughout it all, I felt like I was walking around, slumped and destroyed by the aftermath of it all, just like someone who is certainly not a morning person. This wasn't my cup of tea, I must proclaim.

For the happiness of this book, I must say that these were a bunch of good characters. Ee created a strong protagonist, who was kick-ass and wasn't afraid to speak her word and fight evil, especially as this series is even about Penryn and the end of her days, and I just loved her fighting and the love she had for her sister and her mother. Yeah, her mother was a little crazy as she saw things with the devil that Penryn hadn't, but she was hilarious and I liked the humour Ee added in to it all, and you can absolutely tell that she's a witty person, probably even in reality. I wish that I saw more happiness in her writing, or this would've been a better situation for the bunch of us here.

"There's no denying that this is the real deal, though. Men with wings. Angels of the Apocalypse. Supernatural beings who've pulverized the modern world and killed millions, maybe even billions, of people. And here's one of the horrors, right in front of me."

One of the most fantastic (and sexiest) things about this book was the chemistry between Pen and Raffe. They both were so adorable, and I loved how quickly they played hard-to-get although they both were in love with each other from the moment when Penryn saved him from the evil that his own world has brought to him. AND MAN, THAT CLUB SEEN THOUGH WHERE HE TOLD THE OTHER GROSS CHICK TO LEAVE—that was something special, and Susan Ee just knows how to get it completely right.

Thinking about the aftermath of this dystopia, I can tell you that it was written in a well form, but I missed some of the important stuff as it wasn't clear to me. I can't tell what else was missing, but the plot was a big disaster in the end. Yes, we've definitely got a great world-setting, concept and characters, but I can tell you that this surely isn't one of my favourites, or even close to one of the good dystopians I've ever read. The hype that everyone sees is clear, but this book really wasn't for me compared as it was for others. You'll absolutely enjoy this either way, but the action is what everyone'll go for, just make sure you remember who is who!

What's one of the best angel books you've read?