Angelfall

Like many other readers, I felt burned out by the onslaught of copycat young adult dystopias, fantasies, and paranormal romances, but I heard this series was exceptionally good, so I decided to plunge back into the genre. Indeed, it was entertaining enough that I avidly raced through all three books.

The series starts with Angelfall. Instead of the bizarre trope often used in YA books that has an angel or two coming to Earth and going to high school, this one begins quite differently. A whole slew of angels has come to Earth and triggered an apocalypse. (Eventually we find out why that happened, along with learning that the angels are as much in the dark about a “plan” for the universe as we are.)

The books are narrated by Penryn show more Young, 17, a typical California girl perhaps in "The World Before," who now is trying to ensure the survival of her remaining family - seven-year-old Paige, who is a paraplegic, and their paranoid-schizophrenic mother. In “The World After” as Penryn calls it, rival gangs and apocalypse cults control the assets, and the streets are dangerous, especially for the occasional angel who gets caught there and attacked for body parts that can be sold or traded.

While trying to get her family to a safer place, Penryn encounters a group of angels fighting each other, with five against one. The larger group slices off the wings of the angel being attacked, and they leave him to die. On the way out, one of the group grabs Paige and takes her with him.

Penryn is desperate to get Paige back, and feels that her only hope is to help the downed angel and get him to take her to wherever the angels would have taken Paige. She hides him and helps him heal; he tells her his name is Raffe (Rah-fie). In fact, as she eventually learns, he is the Archangel Raphael.

When Raffe is able, Penryn and Raffe - in disguise - join the human resistance and penetrate the angel aerie in an attempt to get Paige back. What they discover in the aerie changes all of them, both physically and psychologically.

Evaluation: These books are page-turning fun. Not all of the plot threads hold up under the scrutiny of reason, but I didn’t care at all. The characterization is excellent, with Penryn and especially her sister and mother being totally unique unexpected heroines. I found the author’s imagination and sense of humor delightful. show less

Let Angelfall be an example for us that publishing houses don't always have the perfect choosing ability. This makes me want to read more self-published books; who knows what hidden gems we'll find?

Imagine this scene in which a publisher is arguing with his boss over Angelfall:

Boss: Look at this atrocity! Who is going to want to read this?!

Publisher: But I found it entertaining to read.

Boss: *scoffs*Entertaining to read? This is most certainly not an enjoyable book to read. Where are the vital components of a young adult book? Where is the insta-love? The love triangle? The perfect female lead? Angelfall does not conform to our standards.

Publisher: But, I think—

Boss: You think teens these days want to read a book like this – an show more imperfect protagonist, a love interest who isn’t over protective and there to save the day? No.

Publisher: Isn’t it better that this book takes a different approach to this topic, and doesn’t severely underestimate the intelligence of our target audience?

Boss: No, it is not. People don’t like change. Look at all the copies of the books that go by our standards have sold. Look at all the copies that Twilight and Hush Hush have sold.People don’t care if it is virtually the same story but with different characters; they just care about the romance.

Publisher: Sir, that is very unfair of your to judge people like that.

Boss: Meh. This book is utter rubbish.

*Tosses book in the trash*

Too bad for them. Susan Ee be all like:



This book has EVERYTHING I crave in my paranormal books. Every. Freakin. Thing.

Interesting plot? Check.
Believable heroine? Check.
Slow-developing romance? Check.
Goes in depth on angels, without any info-dumps? Check.
Well-written setting? Check.

I must say, my favorite part was when Penryn pretended to be an angel, by holding wings behind her back to give the illusion that she is an angel, in order to save Raffe. I swear, this had me laughing for at least 5 minutes straight.

And the fact that she slaps Raffe when she first meets him? That just increased my liking of her. This girl's got brains, she's tough, and best of all, she's funny.

The end had me horrified. This is certainly how a post-apocalyptic novel should be written, and it is written perfectly. I am waiting for that next book! show less

I look at the angel’s blank eyes, his bleeding mouth. His head trembles, tapping against the floor. I slam the blade into his heart. I’ve never killed anyone before. What frightens me isn’t that I’m killing someone. What frightens me is how easy it is.

Even though her love often manifests itself in ways that a mentally healthy person couldn’t understand – might even declare abusive – that doesn’t diminish the fact that she does care.

This whole story was dark and disturbing – but still delicious if that makes any sense at all. Penryn is a very strong young woman; she has had to be for years before the attack. With her mom conversing with demons and her little sister Paige in a wheel chair, Penryn had to be the show more responsible party of her family after her dad took off.

The angels in this story are so scary and mean it seems like they all hail from hell rather than from heaven – all except Raffe, that is. He and Penryn form an unlikely alliance after his enemies cut off hi swings, and disappear with Paige. Somehow, Penryn is able to grab the cut-offs, his sword, and him, and use Paige’s wheel chair to bring him to safety.

From there, things only get darker, scarier and more dingy. Flesh-eating monsters, resistance, and her crazy mother make up most of it – as do little moments of peace with Raffe. Penryn is just a normal girl who knows her martial art, and she is willing to fight to the death for what she believes in – and it is so easy to believe in her ! She is able to put her doubts into a little box in her mind, then continue to walk forward to save Paige, and maybe even humanity as well.

The whole book is like a mad rollercoaster, you want to get off, but at the same time, it is so exhilarating you can’t help but enjoying it while you scream your head off. It’s fast, with hard twists and turns, and endless falls, and it never stops! Not even in the end… I swear, my heart is still beating its’ way out of my chest, and I wish I already had the 2nd book in this series. I need to know what will happen next!


I never thought about it before, but I’m proud to be human. We’re ever so flawed, we’re frail, confused, violent, and we struggle with so many issues. But all in all, I’m proud to be a Daughter of Man. show less

It's taken me forever to get to this and now I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner. This book was an escape and I don't know what I was expecting but I didn't realize how much I would love it. Reminded me of Laini Taylor's book The Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

Penryn's narration was strong and she was loyal to the nth degree, even to her detriment.. Her character was well-rounded and not lost to plot devices.

Raffe. What can I say. He is that engaging combination of charm, repartee, physical strength and brutality.larger than life.

Paige was a surprise to me, with me finding empathy in this character and nail-biting to the bitter end.

Humor and sarcasm was wonderfully written. Writing good dialog is difficult but Susan Ee was a pro. show more Fast paced, and entertaining but imperfectly perfect. The perfect escape.

Many thanks to Netgalley for my copy. All views herein are my own. show less

The morning beckons and when I turn over, the book I finished in the midnight hours is beside me. The fantasy world is slipping away, unable to follow me into the light. Reality creeps in with the rising dawn, but I'm reluctant to meet it. I want that world, those characters, that emotion back - but it's over. Time to find a new one in a new book and so the hunt is on but the sadness at leaving a good friend remains.Ee has done something amazing here and not just because she's written probably one of the best post-apocalypse fantasies of the year. But that would be a big part of it, yes.And you too can experience the goodness for just 99 cents on Amazon's kindle!Angelfall is a remarkable book, because if I were to tell you the synopsis, show more it would be so unspectacular, so typical of the genre, so... ordinary! But this book is anything but ordinary. Penryn's sister is captured by angels who've brought war and apocalypse to the human world. She finds an angel to help her retrieve her sister and they embark on a journey to get his wings back and rescue the young girl.Simple, right? That's what I thought too. I thought I was just embarking on a ridiculous bandwagon that was being indulgent of an unusually good indie fic.There are one or two issues I have with the novel but they are completely eclipsed by the brilliant story telling, characters and writing.I loved Penryn so completely; believed in her and championed her. This book is a brilliant journey of great character and spirit. Full of the weird and wonderful. Ee has a great imagination and a gift for story telling.I know after I finish writing this review I will go and hunt down my next read. Yet I will get increasingly aggravated and depressed because nothing I see is what I want. Because what I want is Angelfall #2 and none of those books will be that.Go ahead. Jump on the bandwagon. After all, you too could be waking up tomorrow wishing desperately that reality would just give you a little more time in this world, and with these characters, that Ee has created.This review also appears on my blog: show less

"Angelfall" has a tangy, fresh flavour to it - not an easy thing to achieve in a YA post-apocalyptic novel. We've all read about the end of the world so often now that if it were to happen tomorrow it would feel like a reboot.

What Susan Ee has done is to avoid the kick-ass smart-mouthed heroine model and give us something grittier: Penryn, a seventeen-year-old girl who has been shaped by living for years with a mentally disturbed mother who swings between violence and remorse and who ensures that her daughter knows how to defend herself. Penryn instinct, when the apocalypse arrives in the form of meteor showers and sword-wielding angels, is to bundle up her deranged mother and her wheelchair-bound sister and run and hide. This plan show more changes when the winners of a fight between angels abduct her sister and Penryn realises that the mutilated angel that the others have left for dead is her only way of getting her sister back.

What follows is a journey through a post-apocalyptic Silicon Valley to where the angels hang out in a huge hotel block in San Fransico. Along the way, Penryn builds an uneasy alliance with the mutilated angel and starts to build a picture of the new world emerging from the destruction the angels inflicted.

The plot holds together and contains a number of interesting surprises. Penryn seems real - terribly brave in the face of gut-churning fear, she is strong-willed and ready for violence.

The book is dark but never revels in the darkness. The writing is... robust. Here's a sample. Our heroine and her mother are hiding out in a deserted start-up office in Silicon Valley when intruders break in. Our heroine goes to look for her mother. She tells us:

"I find a man lying in the hallway leading to the kitchen. His chest is bare, his shirt torn away. Six knives stick out of his flesh in a circular pattern. Someone has drawn a powder-pink lipstick pentagram with the knives at the end of the points. Blood bubble up from each of the knives. The man is all eyes and shock as he stares at the ruin of his chest as though unable to believe it has anything to do with him.

My mother is safe.

Seeing what she did to this man, I can't help but wonder if that's a good thing. She has purposely missed his heart, and he will slowly bleed to death.

If we had been back in the old world, the World Before, I would have called an ambulance despite the fact that he had attacked my mom. The doctors would have fixed him up, and he would have had all the time he needed to recover in jail. But unfortunately for all of us, this is the World After.

I step around him and leave him to his slow death."

Susan EE avoids the trap of a cliff-hanger ending by providing a resolution of sorts but this book is clearly book one of a trilogy. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it. show less

Full Review to be posted soon:

I bought Angelfall spur on the moment because I could feel myself falling into a bit of book funk,but I really liked the sound of the premise and the reviews behind it was very positive even though I am wary on the angel theme especially for YA books but I WAS BLOWN AWAY.

OMG - I was so sucked in with this book that I totally spent the rest of the day finishing the book because I was so engrossed with the story. Penwyn Young is not only struggling to survive the post apocalypse when invading angels from heaven reap their wrath on earth, but she has to tackle coping with her mother's paranoid schizophrenia and her sister's disability in a harsh world. When her sister is abducted by an angel she is forced to show more team up with another angel, Raffe whose wings have been cut off has become an outcast. On a quest to get his wings back and for Penwyn to find her sister, they encounter a world filled with cannibals, an emerging human movement and angels who would love to kill Raffe on sight.

Penwyn is a fantastic heroine, resourceful, clever and determined to protect her family, I loved the scenes she shared with with her mother, which were uncomfortable and heartbreaking as well as with Raffe whose relationship evolves wonderfully throughout the book. I loved how it evolved and guess what? No emoness or moping in sight, now this is how to do a do a YA!

This was a YA that surpassed my expectations, gritty, dark and unapologetic chilling especially with the climactic ending that definitely gave me a cold chill down my spine, however there is scenes of humour and great diaglogue which really helps to balance the stark tone. This was seriously one of the best books I read this year and Susan Ee has definitely become a break-out author for me! I can't say enough good things about this book if you loved Enclave by Ann Aguirre, or the The Hunger Games, then you will definitely love this book. show less