On a basic language level, I found her writing too flowery for my taste. But wanting to delete nearly one unnecessary word per page makes for a poor reading experience. She did things (like overusing adverbs and saying things in a long, archaic kind of way) that any one of my writing workshops would have immediately jumped all over. I felt like her language could use some heavy editing, though I realize this is more of my personal preference for reading and writing.
The plot was intriguing but a little clunky. For about 100 pages (once we are already 150 in) she changes tack to follow a different character around in the past. I found this sustained excerpt jarring, initially confusing, and at the end kind of unnecessary. (We only needed to know the details of what happened in the last 35 pages of the section.) To add to my dislike of this section, we were following around this annoying and semi-stupid girl. She was naive to the point of stupidity, and since it was always brought up what a good student she was, I was annoyed by her simplicity.
Then we get back to the main character, a young pretty satisfied-with-her-life nun named Evangeline. Umm, really? Okay, we take that as it is. Fine. Then later we find out she saw an angel when she was a little girl and never demanded her dad to know what the hell he was doing with a captive angel? REALLY? She is also kind of simple-minded as a character. Which I've found, as I read books with stupid characters, annoys me.
Oh, and the boy that shows up at the convent, and gets tangled into the messy web of the angelologists lives and the angels' ruthless plans, falls for the pretty nun. And after a few tense situations, Evangeline starts to realize she IS capable of sexual feelings. And they are directed towards the only man her age she's seen in... how many years? at least 5. Uh-huh.
Well, needless to say really, when two of the pivotal characters kick it at the end (in fact both are murdered) I can't say I cared. I didn't feel an emotional conniption to any of them (well, the boy was decent, he didn't annoy me and he had appropriate and intelligent insight sometimes). But the rest? Didn't really care for, wasn't rooting for them, and when the angelic lyre (which the book is spent looking for) is found and assembled I was kind of left wanting more.
I could tell you in detail about the end (which I had huge problems with) but I will hold off in case any of you want to take the dive yourselves. I will say this: there is a pretty big plot twist, and I was not engaged enough at the end to really care about how it affected Evangeline.
Oh, and this is only the first in a series. I had no idea about this when I picked up the book. Well, I doubt I'll continue reading the series. This just goes to show you, all the wonderful and intricate fantasy in the world can't save lackluster characters.
Two of the main characters die off in the first book? How are they going to continue the series. That's like if Bella and Edward died off in the first Twilight (OH WAIT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER.)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the random anti-Twilight joke. It had to be deployed. Anyway.
I can see why it would be tempting for the writer to get caught up in the research and world building in this book. Especially since this probably comes from the author's interest in angelology, or something like that.
With the main character being named Evangeline (GET IT GET IT!) it's probably a pretty easy trap to fall in to make a nun kind of naive and stupid. I assume and one point someone tried to kiss her and she said, "A KISS? WHAT'S THAT?" (Everyone talks in caps in my imagination.)
As for falling in love with the first guy you ever see your own age in five years . . . ew. And ew.
I picked this book up and read the back a couple of years ago at Prairie Lights because of it's title. I'm sorry to hear it's disappointing. Supernatural fiction is hard, I think a lot of authors either get to research-ey or too horror-ey. They can't all be Supernatural. (If Dean and Sam showed up in Angelogy and punched the annoying character we randomly followed 150 pages in, would that make things better? Discuss.)
Oh, and I forgot to mention, there were other characters named Angela, Celestine, Gabriella, Seraphina, and Raphael. Just to be clear, these were humans. (Generally dull humans, who were fighting the half-angels. Which led me to question why they had such angel-y names, but whatevs.)
ReplyDeleteDo you wanna know what Sam and Dean would have done? (Aside from the obvious spicing up the plot, humor, and hotness quotient) Sam would have backhanded the annoying one, Dean would have shot the lyre thingy to oblivion after first laying eyes on it, and they both would have kicked the shit out of the half-angels. And Castiel would show up at the end and say something over their dead bodies in his soft deadpan like, "You were never meant to stay on earth after your fall from heaven." And then Sam and Dean would drive off to solve real problems, (most importantly) looking damn sexy the whole time.
Anything you'd care to add? :)
It sucks when a book seems so promising but ends up falling short at the end. Like Cerasi said, supernatural fiction is hard to write because of the lack of balance of research, fantasy, horror, and character development. It's hard to have both and keep your readers' attentions.
ReplyDeleteI also saw the book at Prairie Lights, but I read the back, flipped through a couple of pages, and didn't give it a second thought. I hope to find a book somewhat similar but more engaging soon.
@Allya- Celestine? Raphael? Angela? Really? Okay, if you want to do ONE of those names it might be acceptable, but like eight of them? Boo.
ReplyDeleteAnd Raphael? No one's named Raphael. You don't name your kid Raphael. If you do name your kid Raphael is means that you've got a basement full of supernatural fiction and you had twins and you named one Raphael and one Lucifer . . . which sounds kind of fun, but I would resist that urge because it would be bad.
On the Sam and Dean front they would meet a beautiful sexy bitchy girl who turns out to be possessed by a demon and then they would get tied up and at one point they would have blood on their faces at various points. They get tied up a lot on that show. Like seriously, they're tied up in every episode.
. . . not that I mind. (God, why are they so sexy?)
@Ada- I like that formula. A mixture of fantasy, horror and research. I like that for pretty much most of the fiction I read. I think you've stumbled upon a perfect formula.
I always feel like supernatural fiction scrimps on the fantasy. It's like, come on dude. You decided to bring angels and demons into this, don't chicken out now. I want to see some serious celestial fighting and some blood PRONTO.