Angel Burn

“He reached across and fingered the pendant; I felt it move against my skin. "Willow, look," He said. "We haven't talked much about what might happen, but...you know that I always want to be with you, right? I mean--no matter what." And I had known it; I felt it every time he held me--but even so, actually hearing the words made my heart catch. "I want that, too," I said. "Always, Alex.”

4.5 STARS

I actually really liked this book. I thought that it was very refreshing from the usual slew of angel and nephilim books like Hush, Hush, Unearthly, Fallen and many others. CHARACTERS Willow I thought that Willow was actually a fantastic character. She was strong, but still vulnerable as a teenage girl would be and I think she was incredibly brave for going after the Church of the Angels. I really appreciated her backstory, with her mother being essentially catatonic because of the angel burn (another very interesting spin on the usual angel story) and her odd Aunt Jo who seemed to really resent her and wasn't a good figure in her life. Also, that house gave me a super weird vibe with all the clowns, I HATE CLOWNS, but it was really quirky and I suppose that's the embodiment of Willow as a character. Once Willow meets Alex, I think that the two build off of each other and really connect the story well. Alex Okay, I don't know if it was just me, but I flipped Alex and Willow's hair colors so that Alex had honey blond hair and Willow had light brown hair, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, I loved Alex, not only because he was really attractive in my head, but because he was all around a good guy. His backstory was tragic, but he didn't dwell on it, and I loved that we got to see inside of his head with double narration (and sometimes other snippets of side characters as well). I don't think that he grew very much, but after all this is only the first book, and even then I think he really opened up to Willow in a way that he hasn't since (view spoiler). WRITING I actually really liked the writing in this. I thought it was clear, with no frills, but still had an elevation to it with a sprinkling of higher level vocabulary and complex sentence structures. And thank you so much for INCLUDING VARIATION IN STRUCTURE. Maybe I'm just nitpicky, but I despise when writers just use simple sentences over and over and over again; it becomes tiresome and weary and just all around bad. But this author had such a nice flow and the writing was crisp and perfectly placed except for a few little spots and nothing that I couldn't easily get over. The only issue I had is that I wish everything was in third person, that way it would be a smoother transition to Willow's narration, but it was all right. STORY This story was really awesome. I loved the spin on angels the author gave. Usually we see angels as "good" but often still arrogant pricks, but in this book they were essentially soul sucking dementors from another dimension, and I LOVED IT. I loved the car rides, because they felt natural, and nothing in the book seemed forced or there just to advance the plot, like a pushy kiss or something. The only thing I had qualms about was that Alex and Willow declared their love to each other very quickly after such a rapid turn around from the hostile tension in the car and hotel, but I understand that love is sometimes funny that way. I thought this book was a pageturner and I read it in a single day, without any regrets. Looking forward to the next book, review to come!