DNF: And Falling, Fly by Skyler White

From the author's website:  "Olivia is a vampire bored with modernity. Tattooist, boyfriend, black-metal singer: everyone you don’t love tastes the same. Since the fall from Eden, she has hungered for love, but fed only on desire. Dominic O’Shaughnessy is a neuroscientist plagued by impossible visions.


When his research and her despair collide in Ireland’s L’Otel Mathillide – a subterranean hell of beauty, demons and dreams – rationalist and angel unite in a clash of desire and damnation that threatens to destroy them both."

 I got this book from the library solely because I loved the title and the tiny bit of the first chapter I read.  Sadly, I returned this book to the library loving only that part of the book.  While the author clearly has a way with words, I often felt the plot wasn't moving along at all and that we were seeing the same complaints from Olivia over and over again only phrased differently (though still beautifully).  Or, I'd stop and half to check back a few chapters to make sure the scene I was reading wasn't one I had read before because the same things seemed to be happening.  After a while, I just got bored of the characters and their incessant desire to be angsty and overwrought.  I'm saddened I couldn't even power through the book but none of my normal tricks to overcome a DNF worked.  (Three tricks I use:  (a) leave the book where it's easily accessible for toothbrush or snacking reading, (b) opening the book to random sections and seeing if any of them capture my attention, and (c) if there are multiple character plotlines, follow only the one I think is most interesting.)

Verdict:  DNF.  I'm sad to say it is so.

Thoughts:  I really wanted to like this one.  I loved the title.  I loved the summary.  I even found the first chapter engrossing.  Sigh.

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

From the author's website: "Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy. 

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side. 

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny? 

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart."

How's this for an admission?  I went into this novel expecting the worst.  I have had no luck with the big name young adult angel novels, and this one had gotten so little press and reviews on my favorite blogs that I just assumed it was kind of not great.  And to prove my point of "Go into something with low expectations and you're sure to be pleasantly surprised", I loved this novel.  In fact, I immediately did a search on Amazon and Goodreads to see if I was going crazy and I found I wasn't alone.  The ratings for this novel were almost all good.

The story starts with a vision from Clara which leads her family to move in an attempt to make the vision come true since Clara's mother (an angelblood herself) declares that this is Clara's purpose in life.  To fulfill this vision.  Clara does not doubt her mother, so move they do.  There Clara meets several others who will either help or hinder her in her purpose and she learns more about what it means to have a purpose and to have the blood of an angel.

Clara's story is an intriguing one which explores the concepts of duty versus love, destiny versus choices, and friendship versus family.  The real winning conflict, to me, is destiny versus choices.  This is an especially fitting conflict to be explored in a novel of angels and devils since God created angels without free will.  How much do I love the author for explaining that in this novel and addressing how an angel would fall without God's express permission and orders?

I honestly never knew if Clara was making the right decisions, but it wasn't because I felt she was being dumb or vapid.  Like Clara, we are given certain input and data, and based on that, we have to guess -- is Clara making the right decision?  Does it matter if her soul gets slightly tarnished if we feel she's morally right?  Or are her decisions ones which will have longer consequences than we can guess at?

I'm very excited for the next novel now.  I want to know more about Clara's family members especially.  Why is her mother so secretive and what is the deal with her brother?  And, again, I'm so happy that I want to continue to read not based on the romance but based on the strength of the plot.

Verdict: 8.  I was surprised by how much I liked this novel, and I'll happily get the next book in the series.  It's not the best book I've ever read, but it's a quick and entertaining read.

Thoughts: Seriously, why is it so hard to find good novels about angels?  Hush, Hush was hysterically bad.  Fallen had so many problems and its sequel was worse.  I haven't heard good reviews for any other big name angel books.  Good on you, Cynthia Hand!

Also, contrary to what it might seem from the copy, Tucker is no supernatural creature.  He's human.  His sister is human.  There are humans in this story and they don't suck and they aren't unimportant side characters, which is a nice change from just about every paranormal novel I've ever read.  Sure, there aren't many, but it matters.

Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison

I could not find a blurb on the author's website, though I did find an excerpt.  I will attempt to summarize myself:  Madison Avery is a young dead teenage girl with several problems besides being dead.  While at the prom, she got killed by a reaper, and she found out that Barnabas, the angel in charge of guarding her, had failed.  However, she managed to grab her killer's magical amulet, and now she's trying to make it work and avoid getting her soul destroyed (and her unlife ended) by her killer.


Let's start with the bad and end with the good, shall we?  Harrison throws you into this story without a life vest.  She throws you in without swimmies.  You've got to fight through the first few chapters, trying to figure out what the hell is going on because you don't know the characters, the world, what's happened to the main character to get her into the situation she's in, and you probably don't care.  Perhaps she does this on purpose.

But, it's not well done. 

It's aggravating and I almost gave up reading.  Why did I continue?  The little I could understand was interesting and easy to read, so I kept going.  Around half-way through the book, I realized I was into the story.  I was into the Grace, the guardian angel who composes limericks.  I liked Madison when she wasn't vrooming wildly between goth and faux-aggressive Buffy-esque chick.  The plot, when you threw away all the overly-dramatic bits, was pretty darned good. 

By  the time I got to the end, I was happy I had stuck it out.  I liked the resolution of the action and I found the premise interesting enough that I added the sequel to my library wishlist, and I looked for the novella that probably came before! Sure, the last chapter was sort of cheesy, but the chapters that preceded it were so strong that I was willing to forgive and forget.

Verdict: 6.  I'm glad I kept reading this book, even though I struggled through the beginning chapters.  I think if I had not finished it, I would have mentally given it a 3 or 4, but the ending showed so much promise, that I ratcheted up the score.

Thoughts:  I know that Kim Harrison likes to write in anthologies, but this is ridiculous.  The beginning of this book practically required that you had pre-read Prom Nights From Hell.  And from the small excerpt I read of that short story, she greatly changed the supporting characters, such as Josh, around by the time she wrote this book.  I'm almost angered by this whole fact.

Fallen by Lauren Kate

From the author's website: "There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her."

After reading a few fairly negative reviews of Fallen, including one from a blogger I trust,  I was remarkably hesitant to read this novel. I wavered back and forth, back and forth. Did I want to read a novel that was receiving good reviews from people who mostly loved fated love and Twilight? The answer was no for a long time, and then I spotted it in my library and I couldn't resist that cover. God must really love his angels because he makes sure their books look the prettiest, even if the angels are fallen!

I started the book the day I got it and finished it rather quickly, perhaps several hours later. And my immediate reaction was, "Well, besides Luce and Daniel being kind of boring, that wasn't so bad. I don't know why it got such bad reviews." Then, I took the time to think about it, and here's why I think it got bad reviews.

Let's face it, Luce and Daniel are boring and that makes their romance kind of boring too. Besides being good looking and mysterious, what does Daniel got going for him? He both growls and stares at Luce in meaningful ways. He is mean to her, but also sweet to her. He's basically Edward Cullen in angel form, and I didn't like Edward Cullen either. (To be fair to Edward, Daniel isn't half so interesting as he never, not once, plays vampiric baseball, which is my favorite WTF moment from the first Twilight novel.)

The main villain of the novel is barely fleshed out, and the motivations behind the villainy are not explained in any meaningful way. They never explain why all these angels are hanging out at a reform school since they don't appear to expect the main character to show. Do angels just like hanging at reform schools?

The climax is rather a let down, and I think I'm growing to hate badly done love triangles. (Ask me how I feel about a good love triangle in which the guy I like wins or in which I like both guys and I'll give you a completely different answer.)

So, why the verdict of a four then, I'm sure you're asking. Because it has two redeeming characters who I very very quickly grew to love. Arianne and Penn. Those two characters are the reason I'll probably read Torment. (That, and the cover. Again, pretty.) Both of these friends of Luce made me interested in what was happening and what they were doing. The moment Arianne commanded Luce to chop her hair, I think I fell a bit in love with her. Why did Luce cut her hair? Because she was forced to, due to the 'incident'. Why did Arianne? Because she's got a will of iron and a strange impulsive nature! However, even better than Arianne, was poor poor Penn.

Penn deserved to be the real star of this show. She was odd, sneaky, an interesting friend, and not very impressed with the people at the school with her. Her back story gave her an interesting reason for being at the school, unlike ANY ONE else in the book. She stole every scene she was in with Luce.

In fact, trying to remember this book that I read over three weeks ago, the scenes I remember most clearly are those with Arianne, Penn, or Cam, and that's because they were the most interesting and most memorable scenes.

I am betting I'll read the second book in the series, but I'm hoping that Daniel and Luce get personality transplants between the books.

Verdict: 4.  Thinking about it and discounting Penn and Arianne, I wanted to punch every one of the characters.  Well, and besides Cam.  I'd totally make out with him before punching him.

Thoughts: No, seriously. Angel covers? The prettiest. I have read hideous reviews of Hush, Hush, but would I turn it down if I saw it at the library?  No. In fact, I want to buy these just to have them to be pretty on my bookshelf. I have the same problem with the Luxe series (especially Rumors) that is gorgeous, but rather boring.