Angelfall Post (Spoilers bigger than the Sun are present)

Yaymanda wanted to 'know my thoughts' on Angelfall when I finished it. 

Well, here they are:

Okay, now for actual thoughts. Even though those GIFs do a good job of saying those thoughts. 

Overall: ... Wow. I knew this book was gonna be good, but it pretty grabbed my expectations and slammed them with a sledgehammer. This books has pretty much everything that makes a good book:

Likable characters: Check. 

Dislikable characters: Check. 

Good job of portraying the ruined world the book is set in: Definitely. 

Freaks readers out to the point they cringe but NEED to keep reading: Oh, yeah. 

Character development: Indeed. 

Everything else I'm too lazy to list can go here. 

Okay. Assuming you watched Amanda's vlog about the book, you probably have already read it or just spoiled the entire thing for yourself, so I'll spare you plot details that you already know and jump right into the action. 

I really especially liked how the elements in the book looped around to haunt you later. I was thinking about it last night, and the best way to describe it would be like explaining it without explaining it. Like, it told you what something was, but only through dropping vague hints. Which could either lead to utter confusion or complete asdfness. 

First off: Penryn's dream. At one part in the book, Penryn has a nightmare about flying scorpions or something. I don't remember exactly where in the book that is so I can't look it up (sadly). BUT LATER, in the end of the book, she finds these strange creatures that should be out of an X-Files episode: Dragonfly wings, humanoid, and scorpions. Pretty much the same thing that was in her dream. Somehow. 

Next you have the 'feral children': In the scene were Penryn and Raffe leave Obi's camp, they get attacked by short creatures that act like piranas on land. They were all for Penryn, but they didn't like the taste of Raffe. Given that the book is from Penryn's point-of-view, they're just described and shadows and we're given no details as to what they look like. ... ... Or are we? Again, this loops to the climax, where Penryn finds her sister, Paige. She finds her among some other 'specimen' children that look like they should be the children of Frankenstein's monster. Now, Paige was paralyzed from the waist down to something her mother (supposedly) did when she was two. That said, she wasn't able to walk. But at one point, FrankenPaige walks, moves with inhuman speed, mutilates an angel, and even carries Penryn and puts her in a truck. Oh, and when she mutilated that angel, she spat out its flesh. THAT SAYING, those creatures from the camp escape scene? It's these experimented-on children. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. 

Raffe. He's a very unique character in my opinion. He's wounded for pretty much the entire book, yet he still shrugs it off to be an arrogant bird and ends up being a total boss. He reminds of Jace and Will from Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices, respectively. At the start of the book, you literally know next to nothing about him. By the end, you know that his real name is Raphael, and he's an exile. At one point, he was apparently popular with the angel masses, as the antagonist archdemon is out to make him look bad so no one likes him anymore. In that, it's mentioned that people would 'find out he's back', strongly hinting at Raffe having not been with the other angels for who knows how long. It's also mentioned that if he's just outright killed, he'd become a martyr. SO YEAH. Raffe is important. 

Let's talk about Raffe's sword now. From the beginning of the book, Penryn carries it more than Raffe, and in the end it even rejects Raffe. When Raffe picks up Penryn after she's stung the nightmare-scorpion-monster and paralyzed, he slides the sword back into its sheath, which is concealed on Penryn's back. It never says anything about taking it when he leaves. Before that, Penryn thinks, as she's hitting a demon with it, that the sword is hers now. Does that mean she'll become a totally even more bosstastical character because she can hit things with an angel sword now? Hopefully. It also leads to some groundless speculation I've made about Penryn, but I'll keep that to myself until it either happens or doesn't. Hurray. 

Alright, what else... ... OH YEAH. 

One thing I liked about Angelfall, among everything else, was how the author wasn't scared to be vivid and descriptive. She makes it easily known the world has fallen, humanity is on the run, and things are NOT pretty for anyone. Hm... I think sometime in the near future I'll make a post about what I like/don't like in books. Hm. Hm. 

- I have a lot of cats