Aimee Agresti

Reviewed on the YA Sisterhood Blog
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As I was reading Illuminate, my favorite quote kepting popping into my head:

“"Are there, infinitely varying with each individual, inbred forces of Good and Evil in all of us, deep down below the reach of mortal encouragement and mortal repression -- hidden Good and hidden Evil, both alike at the mercy of the liberating opportunity and the sufficient temptation?"” --No Name by Wilkie Collins

We all would like to believe that we would be show more that person who stands up for someone in trouble, even if it puts us in danger. It’s our base desire to be good—I believe we all have it, deep within us. But let’s face it, unless we are put in that position, none of us really know how we would react. On the other hand, I believe we also have, rooted deep within us, an evil or corrupt nature. Which nature we choose to act on is what defines our past, our present, our future, and most importantly—our afterlife. In Illuminate, each character’s soul is in the middle of a tug-o-war between good and evil. Who will fight and who will fall when the “sufficient temptation” rolls around?

I had initially planned to write it in a very typical format. You know the format—this is what’s great, this is what’s not so great—but I don’t think that, with Illuminate, I could bring out what makes this book special. So, instead, I am going to narrow my review down to dichotomies, which is the very essence of this book. Aimee Agresti begins with a stereotypical problem that many have faced in their lifetimes, and from there, these stereotypical characters in a stereotypical situation bloom into the anything but ordinary—“the paradiso.” OR so it would seem.

Popular vs. Pariah
Coming from a small school where you can participate in everything and being a part of the popular crowd made me like the antagonists the best (don’t judge me, bad guys are awesome….kind of like I root for Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty or Draco in Harry Potter). Full of corrupt power, Aurelia is the quintessential temptation for those who desire fame or fortune. As you will find soon into the book, Aurelia and her band of glamorous followers have sold their own souls and are in the business of buying others' souls. While I wouldn’t dream of selling my soul for anything, you can definitely see the more negative desire of the human heart in her, and thus, on some level, relate to her.

On the other hand, Haven is the quiet, smart girl in school. After teaching for a few years, I can unequivocally see how so many people would relate to her situation. If you know what it’s like to be overlooked (and hey, we all do at some point), then you will relate to Haven. Or, if like me, you sometimes live in a fantasy world where you wake up and it’s you who has the strange power or the magical destiny, then you will love how Haven goes from the insignificant student to the confident and power-wielding hero.

Past vs. Future
I enjoyed the idea that Haven (and Lance’s for that matter) past is murky. Both were orphans, adopted by someone who encouraged them to fight for their future. So while the past is unknown, dark, and scary; they each work and work to make sure that their future is exactly how they picture it—if only it would stay that way. Much about the past is left unanswered in this first book, so we’ll just have to wait and see why Haven was left on the side of the road to die or why Lance was left all alone at a firehouse.

I will tie time into this dichotomy as well, for like our human reality, the demon reality that Aurelia, Lucian, and The Outfit live in, time is a commodity. With each new induction (a ceremony where the purchase of a soul is complete), one old soul must return to the Underworld. As long as a demon is providing souls, his or her time won’t be up. What happens when there is a spark of good left in the demon’s soul?


Good vs. Evil
The first quote that Agresti has in her novel is from Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray, “The soul is a terrible reality, It can be bought and sold or bartered away, It can be poisoned or made more perfect. There is a soul in each one of us, I know it.” This modern day Dorian Gray shows us how each decision we make affects the beauty of our soul—each sin makes a small blemish to remind us of our vulnerable state of being, whereas each act of love or redemption casts a brightening light over our heads.

My favorite part about the book is the internal struggle about what future to choose. I loved to watch Haven struggle with her desire for Lucian, even after she knew the truth about him. That’s human nature isn’t it? We refuse to believe what we see with our eyes if it breaks our hearts. What’s even more intriguing, though, is to see how Lucian struggles with his own choice for immortality.

Agresti paints a world of black and white, good and evil, weak and strong, fire and ice where everyone must make a choice, and once that’s made, there may be no going back.

Conclusion
The book is not without its flaws. With a kind of Tolkien description, there are times when I felt I could have skipped a page or two and not missed anything. I mean, the book is 531 pages and could have easily been 50-100 pages less. Nonetheless, I still read it all in few days (which is good for me as I have an 8 month old who is constantly getting into things and stealing my attention—along with the attention of anyone who lays eyes on him!).

I do believe that this book will be more appealing to teenagers who can relate more to Haven’s current place in life. I wish it would have had more of a romantic appeal to it. There is the romance between Haven and Lucian, but it’s ill-fated from the start, so I couldn’t allow myself to really enjoy it.

The characters are a bit stereotypical, I mean, you have the token gay guy, the smart nerd, the sexy mysterious guy (who happens to be a demon), and the girly hero (who happens to be an angel). I truthfully didn’t have a problem with this, though. I still enjoyed this book, but it was not one that I would start texting friends and family to read right away.

As for the content of the book, there are a few curse words, mainly the s-word, but they were not rampant. I would say no more than 5 or 6 times in the book. The thing that would bother me most (as a parent) is the underage drinking. There is a night club, The Vault, that Haven and her friends are allowed in to, where there are a few scenes that highlight dancing and partying. Haven, though, does make a point not to drink or party. The most sexual content you’ll see is a hot and steamy kiss on the way to a night club. show less

I like this book quite a bit. I didn't love it but I am definitely happy I picked it up. I finished it in two days so it is a fairly quick and easy read. Some reviewers say they felt it started slow but I had no issue with it. Though, honestly, that could partly be because of the previous book I read which I will not get into here haha.

So in this book we have the main character, Haven Terra. Not gonna lie little bit of a weird name to me but not as weird as America Singer which is in fact a show more main character in another book series. I can't complain too much about her name or the other main characters of Lance, Dante, Aurelia, and Lucian. In fact I really though the name Lucian fit that character and Aurelia fit well also. That said the names for most of the Outfit members were ridiculous including Raphaella and Calliope which I don't even know how you would say the second one. I think the only male Outfit name we got was Beckett so that was normal I suppose.

Anyhoot, the story itself was good even though there were moments where I just kind of had to suspend all belief or roll my eyes a bit. It is somewhat off that while Haven is described as being a nerd with no interest what so ever in fashion that she can describe in crazy detail outfits and hairstyles. That is one of the pit falls for authors who chose the first person, you want to give the reader a good image of the world and people but that can be challenging to do without going out of the characters personality type in some cases. It didn't bother me too much but it was something that I noted in my head as I was reading.

This is also not action filled at all. If you are looking for something with tons of kick-butt angel/demon action that is not this. A lot of it is ease dropping and running around doing chores. It kinda reminds me of Skyrim or Fallout where you are constantly running errands for people but less exciting because she didn't have to fight anyone on the errands. This is really a YA romance above all else but not like Twilight in that the girl can stand on her own. (Don't shoot me down for not liking Twilight and thinking Bella is a nitwit. It is just my opinion so don't take it personal.)

I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I couldn't figure out who she would ultimately end up with till towards the end of the book. Usually I can pick out the one the main character will go for within the first 1/3 or so of the book but in this case I wasn't sure, which is fairly refreshing.

Sorry this is a fairly short review. Honestly it is hard for me to write reviews when a book doesn't really irritate me or wow me. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes the whole angel/demon thing and wants an easy YA romance read but still likes their main females to have some independent thought. show less

4.5/5 stars!

Oh, this book was SO much fun. I seriously can’t wait for the rest of the series, because this world of kind-of-angels and glamazon (I love that term!) demons was just too awesome. For a first book in the series, I found “Illuminate” to be incredibly filled out and well-rounded, with nothing for me to really pick at. I loved this more modern spin on the old Judeo-Christian-Islam ideas of angels/demons — it’s definitely one of the more original angel-genre books that has show more come out in the last few months. If you like your heroines determined and full of gumption with a tiny serving of romance on the side, “Illuminate” is one you can’t miss.

What impressed me the most was that Agresti was able to construct this completely new world upon so many myths and legends we know well about demons and the devil and then cram it into such a small space of an old famous Chicago hotel. Worldbuilding is hard to do, and keeping it to the page is even harder, but shrinking it to one particular building (with Hell/Metamorfosi attached) is the hardest thing to do, I think, and Agresti did this with grace and flare. She took a lot of risks with how she reinterpreted how Hell/Purgatory/Heaven works, but it all flowed really well. I didn’t find myself hung up on any one area due to rage over bad or lack of character development, which pleased me greatly.

As for romance – even with the kind-of insta-romance with Lucian, Haven figures things out pretty quickly and recognizes that it’s more lust than love. Whereas the real romance that happens, happens very very slowly. And that is so refreshing in YA right now, I can’t even express how happy I was to see that in this book. And I’m glad that there was some time given to Dante as a gay boy in terms of romance (even if it wasn’t real) – the way Agresti handled having an LGBTQ character was realistic with Dante’s feelings of “you have no idea how I feel” and being more easily tempted to join the Outfit than the others due to his feelings of isolation because of non-heterosexuality. I’m glad she didn’t couch him in bullying and suicide like so much of YA fiction does. The fact that his feelings are even discussed in a romantic nature at all had me thrilled because he felt like a real person and not just the girl’s best gay boy friend who’s fabulous in fashion trope that feels so overused right now in our culture as a whole, even if it does have some truth to it. Dante has dimensions and I’m so very happy Agresti made his character thus.

I think the only area I was slightly disappointed in, however, was how almost unbreakable Haven was at times in terms of her steadfastness of being good. Even if Lucian may have been her “weak spot” in terms of possibly turning to the dark side, I think it was incredibly underplayed and if anything, wanted Haven to give into temptation a little bit more before figuring out how bad things actually were at the Lexington. If anything, I hope Agresti will possibly explore what could have happened had Haven decided to join the Outfit/Legion as opposed to the fate she actually chose. I think that would make for good character development through torturing Haven a bit with the “could have beens” and “what ifs” about her choice. I love it when authors torture their characters and I think that Agresti could have done that a bit more here. She stayed her hand, but I’m hoping the next books will go all out with really testing Haven’s sense of self and character. That said, Haven is a wonderful heroine that is just the type that I adore in YA fiction – strong, self-reliant, and not helpless and having to choose between two boys all the time.

Another area that really shone here: Agresti’s use of sensory language. I really wanted to wear the dresses, eat the concoctions from the kitchens, and sweat with the dancers – and it felt as if I were able to do so through her nearly surreal descriptions of the Lexington and where we were with Haven at any given moment. Everything was elegant, snazzy, and I definitely enjoyed that a lot. What I would like for the next book is more sensory input in terms of life outside of the Lexington (I felt that the sensory language there was a lot stronger than everywhere else), and maybe more character development for Lance.

All of that said, this is a very, very strong first book in a series and a definite must-read for 2012. I really enjoyed this one, so it makes my best of 2012 list so far. Check out “Illuminate” when it hits shelves in North America April 3, 2012.

(posted to librarything, shelfari, goodreads, and witchoftheatregoing.wordpress.com) show less

It wouldn't be fair to say that I disliked this book, because I didn't. The characters are what got to me more often then not. Agresti's writing shone when describing, in vivid detail, the historical past of the Lexington hotel and the gorgeous outfits the 'Glamazons' wore or the pretty trifles Dante would dress Haven up in. Her attention to detail and ability to invoke a response is undisputed by me.

Her ability to conjure complex or even likeable characters fell flat.

For instance Haven's show more friend Dante never really breaks out of the mold of 'the gay best friend'--he's not effeminate so much as just very...girly. He likes dressing Haven up and dishing about gossip and looking at the pretty people. Hidden layers he does not have. Don't get me wrong, I've known guys like that--gay or straight for that matter, but Agresti doesn't given him any hidden depths or flaws. Almost a Stepford Wife honestly--he could do hair, clean, go shopping and still have time to chat with his friends at the local shop before going home to make a perfect three course meal.

It got annoying.

Then there's Haven herself. Honestly the predominant need of 'shy, brainy' girls who just need to unleash their hidden beauty is getting tiring. Shy has become the new name for girls (or guys) who are merely not 'socially sophisticated' enough. 'Brainy' is the by word for anyone who has high grades and an interest in something artsy (like photography). And every single girl who is shy and brainy is undoubtedly a diamond in the rough just panting for the chance to be beautiful and noticed. Sorry that isn't how 'shy' works. You don't become insta-prom queen and suddenly get over the fact you dislike crowds, or can't stand obnoxious people or god forbid lose all your common sense.

The other characters are kind of..uber-creepy. Even given the explanation for the uber-creepiness (lost their souls blah blah) they still managed to be a cut above normal creepy. This book also manages to take adult negligence, parental absenteeism and 'grown-ups are bad' tropes to a whole new level.

And lest you think otherwise this is another paranormal Angel book. Though Agresti at least doesn't ram it down our throats as liberally as Jessica Shirvington did in EMBRACE.

In the end I kept reading this book mainly for the lush detail work Agresti put into Haven's photography and the grand past of the hotel and very little else. show less