Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee

Synopsis from Goodreads:

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

So it’s been a while since I read this book but I remember Angelfall as a quick and very good read. I didn’t really know what I could expect, because I didn’t know that much about the book. I also hadn’t read a book about angels before (except for the infernal devices, but those are very different, and you can’t really compare them.) But I liked it a lot!

I loved our main character Penrynn. She really kicks ass. She is brave, still very realistic and imperfect. Her actions aren’t always the right ones and she’s aware of this. Although her mother is mentally unstable and talks to demons, Penrynn loves her and her little sister very much. And she is determined to safe her sister, no matter the cost.

Than we have got Raffe, what do I say. He was likeable too. Raffe is stuck between helping Penrynn safe her sister, because he knows he is the best shot she’s got, and solving his own problems.

Something I have to say is that I really loved the conversations the two of them were sharing. It got me laughing almost everytime.

““Here, I’ll show you how to use it. Let me see your foot.”
“That’s a pretty intimate demand in the angel world. It usually takes dinner, some wine, and sparkling conversation for me to give up my feet.””

In the beginning I had the feeling that the book wasn’t that original. It felt like a typical surviving-got-to-find-someone- story, like I read or saw it somewhere else before. Yes, this is a typical storyline that you see a lot, but I’m talking about the things that were happening too. They felt familiar as well, although I never lost interest. The action kept going and I was turning the pages very fast. Fortunately the storyline got way better throughout the book. And what happens near the end.. holy crap! It was perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything better.

I have read some thrillers, such as the girl with all the gifts, because I love being creeped out, but this book creeped me out even more than they did. It is very graphic and there are some cruel and nasty things going on in the book.

The ending of the book itself gives you some closure and does, in my case, not desperately makes me want to pick up the sequel. But I know that eventually I will. I can tell you that.

RATING: ★★★★

Angelfall / Susan Ee / Hodder and Stoughton / 2011 / 326 pages / ISBN 9781444778519