Hardcore Heroines

I’m not keen on Angels novels, I don’t know why but every Angel book I’ve read leaves something to be desired–I’m looking at you Hush Hush and Fallen. The premise to Angelfall was unusual, because Angels caused the post-apocalyptic world and are evil. I got a little freaked out by how awful Angels were in this book!
It is quite uncommon that I love the heroine and get a little annoyed with the love-interest. However, I found Raffe was luke-warm and then cold towards Penryn. Presumably so he didn’t develop feelings for her and to ‘protect’ her, but honestly, it became annoying. However, I loved Penryn’s independence because she’d learnt martial arts and could protect herself, despite being a little lost.
There are many cliché’s that pulled this novel down for me in rating, most of them involving Raffe. Angelfall isn’t entirely to blame however, it’s also the other Young Adult books churning out the same clichéd stories that are wearing me down.
An example of a cliché was that Raffe was described as ‘Adonis like’ and Penryn was ‘boring looking’. I find this is the case with a lot of Young Adult novels, with the stunningly attractive male falling in love with the average-looking female. I like reading about confident girls, and I don’t need the guys to be God-like in appearance to keep me interested.
Me: “What? This guy doesn’t look like a Greek God?” *shuts book* “Nope, not good enough.”
Raffe was sometimes unreasonably rude to Penryn and I felt like she was too kind towards him and it would’ve made things more interesting if she’d defended herself more.
I empathised with Raffe and his situation, considering a part of him had literally been ripped away from him. I did like Raffe, and in some scenes of the book, my heart melted a little. However, he brings up quite a few of my annoyances and pet-peeves, that I could not ignore.
Penryn was on a mission; her wheelchair-bound sister had gotten kidnapped and Penryn has to save her from evil Angels who’d taken over the world. Oh, and she’s also got a crazy mother who likes talking to demons and showing up at the most inappropriate times. Penryn was fantastic, I really understood her–she was a normal teenager who didn’t entirely know what she was doing, but wasn’t completely helpless. She had a mission and no one was going to stop her, I admired her determination.
Towards the end climax, I was completely shocked and the plot really thickens from there till the end. It was a very open ending, because I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next installment, but it stopped on a satisfying, positive note. I’m interested to see where this story-line goes, especially for Penryn’s sake.
I didn’t love, love Angelfall, but I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.
This book gave me tons to think about, there were a lot of things that did not cater to my personal preferences, yet I still managed to enjoy it, which says something!
I’m wavering, but I’m going to go with 3.5 Stars. Recommended if you like Angels, and hot n’ cold relationships.
If anyone has a recommendation for a good Angel book, let me know. I’ve tried Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick and Fallen by Lauren Kate. I didn’t like them.