A review by jessdone
Angelfall, by Susan Ee

4.0

This was a great book and a perfect intro into a dark (dark as in horrific not as in angsty) trilogy. I’d read a couple reviews before picking up the book and all of them claim this book is dark, but this first book is not very dark for most of the story. Yes, we are in a destroyed civilization. There is a certain level of lawless danger and grime required to make the scenario real. The first three quarters of this book hit all the standard post apocalypse/ unlikely ally beats. Then the last quarter of the book hits and it starts to become something special. 

While there is intensity change, it’s earned. Little hints and dangle plot threads deliver all at once. I recommend readers make certain they can read straight through to the end once our leads make it to the aerie because there’s no one will want to put the book down once the actions starts.

I love the cast. There are more notable women than men in this book and all of them are fully developed and different from each other. It shouldn’t make me so happy, and the gender of characters shouldn’t matter so much. But it matters because this is a pleasant anomaly and not the norm.

Along this vein, I appreciated how Paige and Penryn’s mom were portrayed. It integrates their disabilities into their characters, but it doesn’t define them. In Paige’s case, her pacifism defines her, but what informs it may be the coldness others have treated her and her friends because they look different. Penryn’s mother’s defining characteristic is her ability to survive. Yeah she’s erratic, paranoid and leans in when sane people lean away but crazy aside (which the series plays with what is crazy in a world as unpredictable as this), she survives against staggering odds. 

  I like how Penryn’s survival skills make sense with her back story and I love she has a less than perfect home life. If angels hadn’t come to earth in her world, Penryn’s life would still have qualified as difficult and would have still made her an interesting character to read about. Too often the events in the stories are what’s interesting, not the characters. Remove the angels and I still want to see Penryn survive her crazy mother and a world that’s shown itself to be cruel to others who fall outside the norm.

The series isn’t perfect. Raffe’s dynamic with Penryn, especially in this book, is cliche of the genre and has some problematic elements I never care for. The whole human resistance side plot is blah. It develops more in later books, but this first one, not so inspired.  

I would recommend the series. If you’re on the fence at the end of book 1 (which with such an awesome ending why would you be on the fence) I would still suggest you keep reading. This first book is the weakest of the three and it’s still awesome.