Halo

I was so excited when I landed a spot on Good Golly Miss Holly’s ARC Tour for Halo. I’m all about some angels and the premise for this book sounded promising. And then I actually read it.

I seriously worry about the future of women (and feminism) when there’s things like this and Twilight guiding our youth … and adults. I know that may be harsh, but I’m losing my patience. Halo was practically Twilight, but with wings.

First, you’d think that a book bordering on 500 pages would actually have a massive amount of plot development, but it’s sparse at best. We have to sit through pages and pages of empty scenes to even be given a small ounce of story line. And can I just say, being a teenage girl is not all about makeup, show more shopping and zomg!prom! What a way to paint them as empty eedjits, eh? Oh, and by the way it’s the 21st Century, girls can ask guys to the prom too. Clichés don't stop there though, no. They range from "poetry is for girls" and "I'm a boy, I know engines" and back. *sighs*

I believe if we cut this book down to just the main storyline, it would only be 30-40 pages long. It took just over 250 pages just to introduce the damn villain. And if that was a climax, it certainly wasn’t an enjoyable one. Remind me to feign a headache next time.

And don’t get me started on character development … what character development? The deepest person in this book is Xavier because he happens to have some so-called baggage, yet we only get damp up to our ankles. Our protagonist, Bethany, is even worse than Bella Swan in terms of completely devoting her every waking moment and thought to a boy she just met. What makes it ten times worse is that Bethany is an angel, a servant of “Our Father” (as God is referred to in this book), sent on a mission to help guide humanity back to the goodness of the world, and faith … and yet she’s distracted by a teenage boy. A teenage boy overrides a mission from God. I mean, come on. Only after what appears to be a week, maybe two, they are already reciting "I love yous"...

Angels are stoic beings, and yes, I can see them as eventually developing intimate feelings for humanity (we have the nephilim, after all, so mythologically speaking that would be the case). But eventually as in after eons on Earth, not the very first day they arrive. On top of that, Bethany actually looks to Xavier to protect her. Wait, did I miss the memo where immortal angels began needing protection from mortals? Must be in my “wtf” inbox, I‘ll check later. So are we saying here that even if you are an angel, immortal and powerful, that you still need a guy to watch after you? Is that it, because that’s what I’m getting from it. Angels are warriors, not whiny daffodils.

And instead of focusing on the mission at hand, Bethany spends her time thinking about Xavier or pondering up disgusting scenarios where we comes to her like a knight to a distressed damsel in some lofty castle bower. Bleh. Oh, and let us not forget the times when he isn’t filling her mind like a knight-in-shining-armor she is sick with worry that “omgz, does he not like me anymore?!!? Whatever will I do?!? I can't breath!” Nauseating. Angel. Psh. More like a Ninny. Oh, and we are even treated to a catatonic phase from Bethany after she and Xavier have a fight. Remind you of anything? *coughs*New Moon*coughs* Because, you know, it’s totally normally to shut down when you have a quarrel with a guy...

This was such a disappointment and was, I thought, overly bogged down with too many religious bits. I get that angels are bound to touch on religion, but you can do it in such a way that it doesn’t feel like we reading a Sunday sermon.

Again, I hate to be this callous but I’m just fed up with books that paint a bad example for our impressionable young ladies. Isn’t it bad enough that we have glamour mags and reality television … and Twilight? If I were a teenage girl, I’d be insanely annoyed that for some reason the media, and some YA authors, seem to think you all need saving by a knight on a white horse and that you are unable to do anything for yourselves. show less

Oh goody, it’s angels again. My track record with angels in YA is dark to say the least. We’ve had one book thrown against a wall and another book so awful I couldn’t help but wonder if it was part of some Richard Dawkins style orchestrated plot to prove how awful religion is (not that any of these terrible books are in any way connected to religion beyond bastardising some of the most interesting elements of Christian mythology, but I digress.) I never swore to not review another angel orientated YA book again but I’ve remained weary and suspicious of others that have come my way and after reading the synopsis of this book as well two articles by the author herself explaining her abstinence (this liberal feminist has a deep show more opposition to abstinence only education and the deep underlying messages it sends to girls about their sexuality, more of which you’ll undoubtedly hear later since it’s something I love to rant about.) and why Edward Cullen is the perfect man (do you even want me to go there?) The author Ms Adornetto published her first book when she was 13. Now aged 17, the same age as my sister (who has much better taste in books, her favourites being ‘The Virgin Suicides’ and ‘Prozac Nation’), she has moved into the paranormal YA field with ‘Halo’ and wow, it’s...

Yeah, it’s awful. (As a brief warning, I sort of went off on a tangent of feminist ranting later on in the review but it is related to the book. If this bothers you somehow then please stop reading my blog.)

From the very first paragraph, Adornetto is trying so hard to be poetic with her prose but it just comes across as incredibly awkward and clumsily written. Everything as narrated by Bethany reminds me of when you write a story and just look up a thesaurus for every fifth word or so; it reads like someone trying to write way beyond their maturity. I think it’s unfair to comment on the author’s age in relation to their work but it’s so noticeable throughout the book. The very beginning of the story, with the three angels adjusting to human life, is a big tell-don’t-show info-dump that drags the story to a halt before it even begins, and this complete lack of pacing continues throughout the 400 pages. We don’t need to know every single detail of the angel-to-human transition straight away; weave it into the story and let the plot continue. Well, what passes for a plot here.

I’m beginning to think that YA writers have become allergic to plots. The recent bunch of popular ones, anyway. Out of the original Sparkle Project 10, I counted 4 out of 10 as actually having a plot. That’s really not a good statistic. The constant meandering between moping and love and moping and feminist rage inducing love was so incredibly dull. Nothing happens for a huge chunk of this book and when stuff does happen it’s nothing to write home about. The book also suffers from the ever increasing trademark of this genre, as well as all Twilight fanfiction, in that Adornetto spends far too long describing thing that just do not matter. The clothes that Ivy wears are not relevant to the plot. The layout of their house does not further the story. None of these things matter in the slightest and even I, with my kink for lush descriptive scenes (although as I said previously, all the descriptive scenes were trying way too hard), was bored senseless.

Of course it wasn’t just the plotting and info-dump overloads that made this book terrible. Let’s not forget the characters. It’s all too common an occurrence to have the plain, boring girl fall in love with the powerful, enigmatic male creature of power in this genre so I was at least hoping for an interesting take on the gender roles being switched. Boy that was optimistic of me. Bethany makes Bella Swan look like Emmeline Pankhurst. For someone who is supposed to be a messenger of God, one of amazing power and strength, she comes across as a whiny, selfish little girl who is incapable of the most basic actions. She, the angel, is the one that needs saving by the human boy! It doesn’t help that the angels just made the stupidest of decisions (where do you station yourself if you want to fight evil? Of course, a high school!) But Bethany really takes the cake. I try not to let my personal opinion of the author’s life or views get in the way of my reviews but having read ‘Halo’ following that pro-abstinence article Adornetto wrote, I couldn’t help but read this book like some sort of silver ring pamphlet. Its desperation to be emotionally manipulative was infuriating. The characterisation was weak across the board, especially with Bethany and cardboard cut-out love interest Xavier.

But here’s the kicker. The bit that made me do the crinkled face in exasperated feminist rage:

“For this evening at least, feminist philosophy had been abandoned, and the girls, like fairy-tale princesses, allowed themselves to be led up the flight of stairs and into the foyer.”

...

So... you really want me to go there, don’t you, Ms Adornetto. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Bullshit!

You heard it from the messenger of God yourselves, ladies. Feminist philosophy doesn’t allow you to wear dresses and have a good time. How dare all those old women whose names I have forgotten try and fight for countless generations of girls and women after them to be treated like normal human beings and be allowed to do such frivolous things as vote! It’s so much more fun to give up all your free will and independence, put on some sparkly skirts and be led around like an obedient little princess while your handsome prince does everything for you. Now put that silver ring back on and get into the kitchen, your prince wants his pot-roast on the table by 7!

Okay, I have to talk about this. The title of Adornetto’s piece for The Age, minus shitty editing, is Guard your virginity; once lost it’s gone forever.” Newsflash – you are worth more than your hymen! Sex does not make you a bad person, wanting sex does not make you a bad person. Virginity is not a gift. I understand how sensitive the topic of sex can be and of course it comes with a degree of emotional attachment, but this bullshit idea that girls need to safe-guard it as if their lives depend on it isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous. The attitudes that come with girls who want sex is shameful, as witnessed by the healthy dose of slut-shaming Adornetto does in her article. Guess what? Sometimes girls want to have sex! And that’s not a bad thing! Tying virginity to ‘dignity and self respect’ suggests that those who choose to have sex are somehow dirty and unworthy, especially when you wrap it up in a YA book so full of bastardised Christian imagery. This is what leads to bullshit organisations teaching abstinence only education as the only form of sex education (and let’s face it, the world needs less of that, and in connection, less Bristol Palin) and perpetuates bullshit stereotypes about women and sex that have been around since time begot. (For anyone who wants to read more on the subject of the purity movement and how it harms young women, pick up ‘The Purity Myth’ by Jessica Valenti.)

I know I went off on a huge tangent there but this idea that sex de-moralises women goes hand in hand with the Twilight-style love story, where teen marriage is the solution and feminism is a dirty F word. Even if ‘Halo’ didn’t have all that crap in it I would still be giving it a low rating. As such, this wasn’t worth my time and I’m sorry I even bothered picking it up. I think I’m done with angel YA books for now and my only hope is that Ms Adornetto at least tries to understand what feminism truly is at some point in her life.

1/5. show less

I think I may need to take a break from the paranormal/magical YA romance for a while; not because the stories are unoriginal or the plots don't have interesting devices or characters, but because the romance is getting very stale, and that's a terrible thing for an idealist/romantic like me.

I actually did enjoy parts of this story, and some of the characters and premises had great potential. Bethany is one of three angel siblings sent to earth to try and help the human race, but the catch is that she's unusually human. It's seen as a weakness, and Bethany will have to work hard to prove that she can do her duty just as well as any other celestial messenger. It doesn't help her case when she begins getting too attached, though, show more especially to handsome school captain Xavier. And then there's the fact that there might be an enemy lurking about...

The book started off quite well. I felt affection for Bethany and her sweetly bumbling, naive antics; they could be excused because, hey, she's an angel experiencing Earth. Her two siblings' differing personalities, stern Gabriel and gentle Ivy, were well-done and interesting contrasts, and while they didn't have any development, they were very true to the myth-linked personas the author builds for them. I liked both of them throughout the book. Bethany's character, however, seemed to get more annoying and less strong with every chapter. Her relationship with Xavier had a lot to do with this, I think, and that's probably the crux of what bugged me about this book.

This book is definitely not the kind of thing that I can call "feminist lit", or even "heroine lit." Perhaps it is in keeping with the Christian ideals of the book, which I was able to accept for most of the book except for a couple points where it became irritatingly preachy. According to these ideals, in general women are supposed to be soft, gentle, sweet, impulsive, fragile, ditzy, and protected. Males are supposed to be protectors, rocks, fighters, leaders, and sports-players. Upon finishing, I realized with a dim sense of frustration that this book conformed to these types to the utmost. There are no ambiguous people, male or female. The females are all either gentle angelic types or clothes-and-prom-obsessed ditzes. The males are all handsome protectors or sleazy jerks. There was really not much imagination there, which is too bad.

Bethany and Xavier's relationship...I wanted to love it. It was very sweet, very cute, but I just couldn't get over its lack of depth. It is so easy for authors to write impassioned descriptions of feeling, or glowing physical praise, or declarations of eternal love and loyalty. But when these things have no foundation, they also have no meaning. Bethany and Xavier had no foundation beyond the standard (and by now really starting to annoy me) "fated love/infatuation at first meeting based mainly on how beautiful and witty the other person is." And then from there it dives right into the "can't live without you or I'll shrivel up and die because I need you, you are my soulmate" stage. It's formulaic and cheesy besides. Some of their lines together began reading like a soap opera towards the end, and that coming from me is never a compliment. Xavier was a nice guy (and he had a very original male lead name, kudos!), but he was also flat, at least compared to many other YA guys. He wasn't swoonworthy for me because he had no personality to swoon over.

I'm interested to see if the author takes any interesting directions with the series, and I liked a couple of the characters enough to want to see what happens next. But it doesn't stop me from being disappointed with a few of the messages and implications, and the fact that the author still needs some practice as far as development goes. show less

Reading this book was like watching Sinbad or Atlantis or any other one of those rubbish Disney movies that wanted to be like their original Princess classics but also new and fresh and imaginative.It's lame. It wants to be classic and awesome but also new and different (and I use the word "different" with all the superiorly quasi-amusement of someone trying to praise a child and has nothing more positive to say. "Yes, Jenny, I see that you've put glue in your hair. That's so...different...")The problem is that it utterly fails at new and different. Supernatural creature human = Twue loff!Except when the supernatural creature is the chick and she still manages to be lamer than Bella Swan, I call dibs on throwing popcorn (or bomb-infused show more popcorn depending on my mood.)To be honest, I could go on about the many mistakes I saw within the first few chapters before I tossed the book out and decided I HAVE A LIFE, DAMNIT! (Wait, so Gabriel, who is not THE archangel Gabriel is a few centuries old - yet later you tell us he was there for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Dude, that's not a few centuries old, that's several thousand years old. I could talk about the writing or the I'M A CHARACTER!! style of characterization. But really, what's the point? It was written by a teenager who's only just barely drinking her first shots of passion-pop. That's like taking potshots at a toddler because he doesn't draw inside the lines. She'll hopefully grow and learn and get better. Besides, I'm not even the target audience. This book is CLEARLY geared toward the kind of teenage girls who WANT to be helpless and taken care of and protected and cherished. Well, I'm not a girl, I'm a woman and I'm not interested in reading about pretty little princesses who would trip over their own billowing hemline if the charming hero wasn't around to rescue them (dashingly, may I add.)So I'm not going to tear into it and lose my temper and imagine that with each punchy sentence and angry jab, I'm stabbing the author in the face. No. I'm going to do what I do when any other child proudly shows me their work with a big corny grin. I won't lie but I won't be mean either. The cover art is lovely, Adornetto, and I really like how you managed to get all the print onto the page!So there you are. No supermean review. Seriously. She's a teenage girl. Sure the book pretty much sucks beyond all reckoning but I like to think I'm adult enough to give her a pat on the head, tell her to go play with the other kids while I talk to the adults.But that doesn't mean I want to spend money on this shit... show less

This was a paranormal romance novel about an angel falling in love with a human. At the onset, I was kind of excited; most paranormal romance I've read involve an average human girl falling for some sort of superhuman male who wants to use his crazy powers to protect her from the dangers of whatever fantastical elements actually exist, and in this book, the angel is the female. However, this book was really a missed opportunity when it came to mixing up the trope. Though the female (Beth) was the supernatural one, the boy (Xavier) still acted super protective of her, and there were several times throughout the novel that she would randomly be fantasizing about being in trouble (lost on a desert island or whatever) and being rescued by show more Xavier. What? Do girls actually fantasize about stuff like this? If so, I must be defective, because I've never dreamed of being some helpless damsel in distress. I'll be the hero of my own fantasies, thank you. It was especially frustrating to see Xavier constantly trying to protect her when you take into consideration that she was literally incapable of dying. The worst that could happen was that she would leave her human form and return to heaven as the angel she always truly was. She should have been the one protecting him.

Another complaint I have about this book is the fact that one of the main sources of tension was supposed to be from the idea that the couple wasn't "supposed to be" and that Beth could be recalled to heaven at any time, never to see Xavier again. My issue with this was the fact that, as an angel, Beth knew that heaven existed, so shouldn't her separation from Xavier have been only temporary until he died and rejoined her in heaven? This concept was never once explored, as though neither character even considered that they could possibly interact in the afterlife. I also didn't like the fact that there were no consequences of them being together, and for no reason. When she ends up dating Xavier and telling him she's an angel, she should have gotten into trouble, but a "higher power" intervened. This allowed there to be no actual tension arising from their forbidden relationship, but there was also no reason for it. I expected that, at the end of the book, it would be revealed that Beth had actually been assigned for the mission specifically because she was weak to human condition and that she was meant to fall in love with Xavier, but that didn't really come up. I believe there is a sequel, so it might come up there, but I felt like I wanted that payoff at the end of this volume. Her capacity for love did end up saving them in the end, but it didn't work quite the same as I wanted.

Additionally, I thought that the characters were pretty much all one-dimensional. Adornetto stuck to stereotypes pretty much constantly when writing these people, especially the secondary and background characters at the school. Beth's English class was filled with goths and nerds that served as unrealistic caricatures of what those people would actually be like, for example. The stereotyping also contributed to a fairly sexist and unhealthy portrayal of female friendship and romantic relationships. Beth's friends at school are all very superficial, talking constantly of nothing but fashion and judging other people. Beth obviously isn't into this, but Adornetto never gives these characters any kind of depth of other aspects to their personalities to explain why they still connect with Beth. In fact, they are instead made fun of. Xavier "rescues" her from having to spend time with them, assuming automatically that they annoy her despite the fact that they are supposed to be her friends, and when Beth and Xavier become a thing, they are shoved to the side. I remember a very specific passage stating that Beth's best friend, Molly, accepted this, understanding that friends needed to take a back seat to boyfriends. This didn't feel like a healthy mindset, at all. Lots of "you're the only thing that makes life worth living" added to the unhealthiness of the depiction of romance.

Going along with that, I thought that Beth was strikingly un-angelic. The point of her character was that she was supposed to be more human than the other angels and thereby struck by human urges, such as the ability to love and feel physical sensations that the other angels couldn't. However, she didn't seem particularly interested in her angelic mission. She and her siblings had been sent to earth to bring peace and do good in their small town, and while that eventually came to the forefront toward the climax of the story, it should have been going on the whole time. One of the two other angels in the story, Ivy, was constantly spearheading various charity campaigns, but Beth did very little, aside from adopting a dog she couldn't reasonably commit to and occasionally visiting an old folks home (off-"screen"). Even Gabriel, their older brother who acted very holier-than-thou toward Beth at every opportunity did very little aside from posing as a music teacher at their local high school. I expected more from them, and I really expected Beth's mission to matter to her at least a little. It seemed that as soon as Xavier came into play in her life, nothing else had any significance whatsoever. Again, one-dimensional characterization.

Despite all my various complaints, I gave this book 3 stars because there were certain sections I enjoyed. For example, the normally superficial and boy-crazy Molly had a brief lapse of character and told Beth seriously that she shouldn't rush into sex before she's ready. There were also some interactions between Beth and Xavier that were sweet, and I enjoyed the banter they regularly exchanged. The prose was also good, for the most part. There were no grammar errors or awkward sentences, and I thought Adornetto showed real skill at descriptions; however, she wrote this book as a teenager, and that was very obvious to me while I was reading it. Sometimes, she would be explaining something and suddenly include information that the character had supposedly experienced at an earlier time, as though it were an afterthought. For example, "Ivy was acting very weird and out of character, and I had also noticed her scribbling in a notebook earlier, which was also out of character" (not an actual quote, but that was the general idea of the sentence). I feel as though in instances like this, a better writer would have found a way to work the uncharacteristic scribbling into an earlier scene, foreshadowing that something was going on with Ivy in a more natural manner. Also, the prose tended to wander in circles when discussing things such as Beth's feelings. There would be a page or so on one topic, such as how difficult it was to get used to being a human, then a page on a different topic, like what her mission was, and that would somehow lead back to more discussion on how difficult it was to be a human. The same thing was basically said over and over, and there was little organization to it all, and absolutely no brevity. That being said, this is something that I think the author will smooth over with more time and practice, and she does show great talent.

One more thing that the author's youth may have contributed to was Beth's angst. She felt much more angsty than most YA MC's I've read, and some of the things she said and thought felt awkward and overstated. At first, that annoyed me a bit, but then I realized that I would have used the exact same word choice at her age. I think it still caused me to disconnect a little from the book, especially when Beth was a supernatural being and thus should have been less angst-laden and emotional than the reader rather than more so, but I'm 24 reading a book intended for young adult audiences, so it's quite possible that Adornetto's voice would have hit a younger me just right. show less

You know what I loved most about this book? It did not preach in an in your face type of way. Now, given that it is an angel book, you know there are going to be some religious overtones, which I only mind when a book is trying to shove it down my throat. I didn't grow up with a religious upbringing, but I know angels would probably be not quite like the ones in Halo This is however, a work of fiction. I like seeing the different ways people think up angel stories, how they present their version of an angel.

What I loved about Bethany was that in the beginning of the book, Alexandra wrote it in such a way that I felt like I was discovering all these new things just like Bethany was. Looking at what we have and live with everyday with new show more eyes. Also, Gabriel and Ivy both said that Bethany was the most connected to humans of any angel they'd seen, and I thought Alexandra did a great job of showing that throughout the book. She starts out otherworldy in the beginning, but page after page she slowly becomes more human. Ivy and Gabriel were awesome supporting characters, providing guidance to the others when needed. And Xavier. Oh Xavier. He's one of my favorite main male protagonists ever. He does need to be better about making snap assumptions though. But hey, he's only human, and we all do that.

For having been written by a seventeen year old, this is an amazingly put together book. I like Alexandra's writing style, it makes for an easy read. The pacing was kind of slow, but I didn't mind at all because it gave me more time to spend with these characters, getting to know them. And the descriptive details were wonderful, I felt like I was actually there with them sometimes.

And the last thing I loved about Halo was that the romance was not hot and heavy from the get go. It was very chaste overall, and developed somewhat slowly like the story, which was a nice change. Sure near the end Bethany was a little clingy, and that gets on a lot of readers nerves, what with the whole "women don't need a man to be happy." But you know, sometimes it's just nice to have someone.

If you're a fan of the angel trend in YA, I would definitely recommend this book. Clearly it's not for everyone, since I've seen a lot of negative reviews, but it should definitely be given a try. I for one am looking forward to the next installments in this trilogy. show less

I have no idea what this was. It started off okay, but then It just got real weird. Some of it conflicted with the Bible a lot and Bethany was more or a rebellious teenager than an angel. Gabriel and Ivy were too much like her parents. I feel like this might have been a teenage romance with strict parents and it would have been a whole let better because then the author could have felt with family relations and perhaps religion conflicts if they were super extreme. Also, none of the angels seemed to be doing much good work to resort man's good faith, and I guessed who the demon was way before Bethany was even suspicious. It's so sad that this book had so much potential yet it flopped out if the sky, sadly.