Summary: Three angels, Gabriel, Ivy, and Bethany, are sent to Earth on a mission to help humans in this small town. Their mission is to bring people together, make them care about important issues, and remind people what it is like to be together. Gabriel takes the position of a music teacher at the local high school, Ivy does things around the house to support the family, and Bethany takes the role of a high school student. Gabriel and Ivy have both done missions before, but Bethany is new. She has a strong tie to humans. This makes keeping her distance from caring too much about people very hard. She quickly makes friends with Molly, a girl from her high school, and ends up with a crush on a boy named Xavier. Luck is in her favor when she finds out that Xavier likes her as well. Their relationship takes off. The two of them quickly become madly in love, and never leave each other's thoughts. This is reminiscent of how quickly and intensely the love affair between Bella and Edward is in Twilight. Regardless, Bethany ends up letting Xavier in on her family secret and he becomes ensconced in their lives. Everything is going really well until Jake Thorn shows up. He ends up being Bethany's literature partner, and everything between them seems to go well. Then bad things start to happen around town again. It's pretty clear what is going on, but I'll let you read the book to find out more.
My thoughts: Honestly, this review is going to sound rather negative, but on the surface I did enjoy the book. It was a book in which, I was not totally involved with the characters that I was crying when bad things happened, but they were likable and I would continue to read more. My biggest problem with the novel is that everything was predictable. There were no surprises for me at all. I didn't know anything about the author before I read this, but while I was reading I knew that it was written by a teenager. The dialogue, writing style, and situations are exactly like what my talented high school students would write. On the one hand, this is really good for a teenage audience. The slang, attitudes, and general thought process of the characters are spot on. A teenager would directly relate to it. On the other hand, it leaves some of the sophistication that is making the YA genre so popular with readers of all ages. As a literary critic (in training?), I would love to delve into the religious significance within the story. It would be entertaining to me to dig through the rules that she has set up for the faith and then the actions of the angels and derive some overarching theme about faith and God's will. However, I think leaving this along as just an enjoyable piece of fiction without deeper significance is better. I want to see how this author grows up and wonder if she will continue to write to a teen audience, or if her characters will grow with her.
My thoughts: Honestly, this review is going to sound rather negative, but on the surface I did enjoy the book. It was a book in which, I was not totally involved with the characters that I was crying when bad things happened, but they were likable and I would continue to read more. My biggest problem with the novel is that everything was predictable. There were no surprises for me at all. I didn't know anything about the author before I read this, but while I was reading I knew that it was written by a teenager. The dialogue, writing style, and situations are exactly like what my talented high school students would write. On the one hand, this is really good for a teenage audience. The slang, attitudes, and general thought process of the characters are spot on. A teenager would directly relate to it. On the other hand, it leaves some of the sophistication that is making the YA genre so popular with readers of all ages. As a literary critic (in training?), I would love to delve into the religious significance within the story. It would be entertaining to me to dig through the rules that she has set up for the faith and then the actions of the angels and derive some overarching theme about faith and God's will. However, I think leaving this along as just an enjoyable piece of fiction without deeper significance is better. I want to see how this author grows up and wonder if she will continue to write to a teen audience, or if her characters will grow with her.
I loved this book! Bethany is really sweet, but naive. Xavier is awesome. It's like Twilight, only a billion times better. It's romantic, but not sappy. Bethany's naive, but not whiny. Xavier isn't a icy statue; he's real and shows that he loves Bethany. I got all my friends to read this.
Angel books are my favorite and this is my absolute favorite.
Angel books are my favorite and this is my absolute favorite.
I just couldn't make myself care enough to finish this book. I'm moving on to something more stimulating and less twilight-ish.
This book is ok. It was like going to see a romantic action movie, and you get the romance, just not he action part of the movie. This was all romance and a tiny tiny chapter of pure action. A few pages and bam it's gone. Granted there are some minor action parts in the book, but the climax of the book was there and gone in a flash and left a lot to be desired. The storyline was ok, granted it is a love story and the love story is there, but is a very needy love story. Beth is constantly saying that she needs her boyfriend or she'll just die because she can't stand to be away from him for more than a few minutes. It's a super clingy romance. I hate to say it but this book seems to take elements from other well known books and movies(coughstwilightcoughs). Again still an interesting read, but it's called, it's been done recently. If this would have waited a few years it probably would have been a huge hit, but instead it's riding in the coat tails of other well read teen novels.
The preview sounded good but I got to the 3rd chapter and I still havent connected to the story so I am not going to bore myself and pass this onto the next person.
It was great.
(It won't let me leave this blank and I don't feel like writing a real review.)
(It won't let me leave this blank and I don't feel like writing a real review.)
