Angelfall and Others

In July, I read ten books:

All In by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
Pleading Guilty by Scott Turow
Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Angelfall by Susan Ee

Okay. My favorite read of the month was The Raven King (of course). But I squeed excessively about this book series last month, so I will refrain from doing it again. (One note: if you haven’t read the raven cycle yet, you really, really should!!)

Instead, I want to talk a little about the book that surprised me. Angelfall. This was the Book Club Pick for the YA WordNerds in July. So I read it, even though I probably would not have picked this up on my own.

I’m not usually a fan of books about angels. Not even when they fall from the sky and interact with humans. So I didn’t think I was really going to like this book. I expected it to be okay.

But it was more than okay. I think the reason I like it is that it is more than a fallen angel book. The main character (Penryn) is fighting to rescue her wheelchair-bound little sister. Who might have been put in that wheelchair by their schizophrenic mother.

That mother pops in and out of Penryn’s journey, sometimes helping, sometimes not.

The angels, as a whole, are a hot mess. In a fantastic way.

There is a spectacular, horrific scene that I can’t tell you about, because spoilers. Watch out for the scorpion-things.

This book is a blend of fantasy, horror, and contemporary that just works.