What feels like eons ago, The Fallen by Thomas E. Sniegoski was a VERY popular book among my classmates. Me, being the closer Avril Lavigne-esque bookaholic, decided I was not going to read what the popular kids like. Now that it's 2019, I decided that it was time to see what all the fuss was about... and I was right in my original decision.

I did not enjoy this book. It was well written and truly intriguing, but I just couldn't get into it. I was going to DNF this book, but I decided to finish it off and send it on it's merry way to a Christmas Adoption (some teenagers were looking for presents, and I'm sure that age group would like it more than me).

It felt like a stereotypical YA novel - angels, nephilim and magical powers with one guy being the most special - but it felt very, very slow. I'm a fast paced kinda girl, so this book made me feel bored.

My biggest positive for this book was that the descriptions and building plot was marvelous. It was truly awesome to read how Thomas was building up this series, but it felt like that - part of a series and not an initial stand alone. Books that build up for a bigger universe tend to fall flat for me - I need a good initial story to pull me in and hook me.

My biggest pet peeve was the dog incident. If you read the book, you know what I'm talking about. I just... nope. Big nope for me. No matter if it's a happy ending or not, that hurt wildly and I put the book down for DAYS because of it.

Overall, I'm glad I picked the book up to see what all the hype was about but it just wasn't for me!

One out of five stars. ( )

I read the first part a few years ago. Still have yet to get to the next. It's just not very interesting. ( )

Different covers would help this series appeal more to its target audience - guys. Lots of battles, gross descriptions of Leviathan's entrails, and no romance. Story was good, but girls picking it up because of its outward resemblance to Lauren Kate's books or the Twilight books will be disappointed. ( )

The Fallen:

Supernatural YA with angels, fallen and otherwise, as the supernaturals du jour. Starts out with a familiar premise: ordinary teenager starts noticing something's odd, gets told he's not so ordinary after all, doesn't believe it, and eventually does when something big makes him do so. I'm cool with that premise; I knew that was what I was getting when I picked up the book. But somehow I just never quite got hooked into the story. I like the set-up with the angels killing off the Nephilim as they reach maturity because they think that's what God wants and a prophecy saying that one of the Nephilim will bring the fallen angels back into the fold. But I dunno. I felt like this book, even though short, took too long to get things moving. And none of the characters do a super lot for me. Since I do like this kind of thing (and I've been wanting an angels story (instead of vampires or werewolves or sommat)) and it was written well and the set-up is promising (and since I already have book two because omnibus edition), I will probably read the next installment and see if things pick up for me.
~April 2015 ( )

The first book, [b:The Fallen|523424|The Fallen (The Fallen, #1)|Thomas E. Sniegoski|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175526577s/523424.jpg|1754696] had potential with a good idea but the characters were transparent, they were so thin. We were never with the characters long enough to truly care about them so that when they died I felt nothing and wondered why it took so long for Aaron to get angry about this when generally he was short-tempered anyway. And why did it take him so long to embrace what came with his anger, his angel heritage, his power which could've saved them?

Verchiel as an adversary was so blind to his own madness it was comical at first until it became inexcusably pathetic. He knew what he was doing was his will, not God's and yet he continued with every goal he tried to achieve only hastening his own failure. Could he not get a clue from that alone that God was unhappy with him? Plus, I don't understand how his blasphemous actions: hunting, torturing and killing innocents in the name of God -haven't seen him lose his wings (literally and figuratively). All he received was a lousy lightning strike which may have cooked his ass but didn't kill him. I don't get it. Please let me in on that piece of reasoning. Others have Fallen for a lot less.

Aaron's yellow Labrador companion, Gabriel was mildly amusing and it would've been nice to see more of Zeke (Camael was a poor substitute in my opinion -very wooden) but the budding attraction between Aaron and Vilma although forced was also sort of sweet and realistic at the same time. However, the language created a very slow pace so that there was no immediacy to any of the action. 2 stars.

The second book, [b:Leviathan|730978|Leviathan (The Fallen, #2)|Thomas E. Sniegoski|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177774247s/730978.jpg|717172] was meaningless trash. B-movie stuff which reminded me of old movies like The Blob or a weird non-episode of The X-Files. I skimmed my way to freedom. There was no way I could read every word without my brain exploding in revolt. 1 star.

I doubt this book will charm the [b:Hush, Hush|6339664|Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1)|Becca Fitzpatrick|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275621186s/6339664.jpg|6525609] crowd though it might snag the interest of young boys of about 10 who are easy to please with monsters and fire and swords, oh my.

I give up. I'm tired now having stayed up most of the night to finish this rubbish and feel I'm turning into a vindictive b*tch so I'm going to stop writing now. ( )