Book Review: Angelfall (Penryn and the End of Days, #1)

Author| Susan Ee (Website)

Edition| Kindle eBook

Genre| YA- Dystopian

Publisher| Skyscape

Rating| 4.5 Stars

Angelfall has been sitting on my Kindle for some time now, and I was happy to pick it up and check it off of my ever growing TBR pile.  I never planned on loving it as much as I did!  While it had a slow start, by the end I didn't want to put it down and ended up picking up the next two books immediately.  While it is a bit of a cliched genre at this point, Angelfall breaks out of the Dystopian rut and ends up being very original and entertaining.

It was a very slow beginning, with easily dis-likable characters.  There was little dialogue and Penryn's inner monologue grated on me for a while.  Everything seemed flat.  And the plot was pretty predictable.  They're traveling in a dystopian world.  I've read it a thousand times.  They even fall into a resistance camp! How original (heavy sarcasm).  I had resigned myself to hating the book.

But then, and I don't know quite when, something clicked.  I couldn't put it down.  I was reading it so quickly, flying through chapters that had earlier taken me forever to dredge through.  The characters were still a bit rough, but they were taking better form.  

And of course the ending had me ripping my heart out.  It made me feel all kinds of feels and I couldn't resist grabbing the next two.  It was an amazing book and I understand why it was surrounded in hype for such a long time.

The writing is nothing special, but it's pretty good.  I don't know if I'd read anything Ee put out, but I would definitely keep an open mind.  Dystopian is my least favorite genre because I feel like it all bleeds together.  I was so happy to find not only a decent book, but one that breaks the mold.  The angels were awesome and the biblical stuff wasn't too over the top.  It also had the right amount of gore and violence that an end of the world novel should have.

As for characters, I never really loved Penryn when reading this.  (I do now that I've finished the series, but she did take a while to grow on me.)  By the end of the book Raffe had made it into my list of favorite characters, though.  He's a bit harsh at the beginning but by the halfway point he had me swooning. 

So, yes, I definitely recommend this book to everyone, especially those willing to give up on the Dystopian genre.