Don't Call Me Angel

Nope.

DON’T CALL ME ANGEL has all the right ingredients – compelling opening, tough heroine, and an ending that has the reader wanting to know what happens next. For all these wonderful ingredients, there was definitely something lacking for me that kept me from being wholly engrossed by this prequel.

The story opens with Six, an angel who has been cast out of Heaven, literally clawing her way out of Hell. I love the dramatic imagery this scene evokes – an angel clawing her way out of the pits of Hell. She makes it out and into the world above, our world, where she tries to blend in and start a new life. Six escapes with her friend or acquaintance, Alden. While Six feels some empathy for humans and holds some value for human life, Alden does not. Therein lies one level of conflict as Alden rampages against humans and Six tries to stop him. It also goes a little deeper. While Six does have some empathy for humans, she also knows that murdering them will alert the powers that be in Hell of her escape. She doesn’t need the attention.

I found this dichotomy in Six to be interesting and the dramatic potential of it all is exciting – she’s conflicted, she knows what’s right and wrong, she has empathy, but there’s a coldness to her, and it takes her a while to act. Six is also filled with anger and resentment toward humans, towards Heaven, towards Hell. For all the dramatic potential, Six felt almost too distanced, too cold; her lack of emotion kept me from really caring about her and her conflict. I also wanted to feel that internal conflict more. In all fairness, I think it’s hard to develop this in such a short novella but I felt the lack of it nonetheless.

Now, the ending…well, played. Nice twist. You learn why she’s named Six and you learn exactly what she’s running from and it makes you want to know more.

All in all, I think this was a good prequel to a new series. With a full-length novel, we’ll be able to get the development of the tormented Six that I was left craving. She has such incredible potential to be a more compelling heroine that I’ll read the first book in the series to learn what happens to her.

**A copy of this book was provided by the Early Reviewers Group.** ( )

Despite the various unanswered questions and the story going dry at times, Don't Call Me Angel was a good read. I would have liked to know more about why certain decisions were made and what makes the characters tick a little more than we were given, but Six was a great lead character, and I would like to have more exploration into this story.
[Early Reviewers Book] ( )

Six was a forsaken angel and has spent the last several hundred years in Hell. She finally breaks out along with Alden, another angel. But when six gets to Earth, she has a hard time adjusting. She chooses to remove her wings and try to live like a normal human. But the more she is around the humans, she finds herself upset that they don’t appreciate what they have and wanting to help their suffering.

When Alden invites her out she finds that angels, demons, and other paranormal creatures enjoy torturing humans. Now she wants to stop Alden from continuing to kill humans. But Six doesn’t know if she is strong enough. Plus she needs to stay under the radar so Lucifer doesn’t find her.

I really enjoyed this story. It was a short introduction to Six and how although she tries to turn her back on God, she just can’t get past why she was created. I really want to find out more about the Forsaken series and can’t wait to get the next book. This is one book that paranormal/science fiction readers will enjoy.

I received this book for free from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Whilst overall I enjoyed reading “Don’t Call Me Angel” I found the plot becoming a little thin at times, where the author has skipped over some key points in the plot, such as Six and Alden’s relationship and the speed with which Six decided not to be angel anymore. There are a lot of unanswered (or ignored) questions, for instance, regarding the worlds the angels inhabit, among other things, which may come out in future novellas. What the reader is currently given, whilst enjoyable and at times engaging, is ultimately unsatisfying.