Susan Ee

4.5 stars. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which much of humankind has been destroyed by angels. The surviving humans live in fear of many things - starvation, street gangs, and most of all, the angels - who are still around. The main character, Penryn, is trying to get her family (her less-than-sane mother and her wheelchair-bound little sister) to safety. As they are hiding in the shadows on their way to another town, they witness a fight between some angels. When the angels realize the humans are there watching them, Penryn and her family become targets. One of the angels abducts little sis. Penryn is devastated. On her quest to find her sister, she learns more about the angels than she bargained for - and she even makes a deal with one of them to help her.

I wasn't sure how I was going to like the way angels are portrayed in this book, but I decided to think of the novel for what it is - a work of fiction, and not what I believe angels to be.

There is some gore and there are some disturbing images, but I didn't have nightmares or anything - still, they were disturbing, so be prepared for that if you are going to read it. The characters are well developed and the story itself flows nicely along - I never lost interest. The short chapters make for a quick read - which was a little reminiscent of James Patterson for me - not the story-line, just the quick progression of it. There are some surprising plot twists I really did not see coming. The ending is well done and leaves plenty of room for the sequel - which is supposed to be coming out some time this summer, I think.

Because there were a few more, um, unpleasant scenes than I normally would like to read, I took a half star off the rating. But that's just a personal preference. Do you think we'll actually be able to click half-stars in "My Rating" some day?… (més)