A Review for Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1) by Susan Ee

Posted by Melanie 
Release Date: May 23rd, 2013
Finished Date: July 22nd, 2013

Publishers: Hodder and Stoughton
Source: For Review

Format: Paperback
Pages: 325

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

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.

The Review: The world has gone to hell following the arrival of the Angels and humankind is at its weakest, forced to scavenge food and hide away for fear of death. Penryn is a 17yr old girl who is surviving along with her mother who has some sort of mental condition & her wheelchair bound sister Paige. On a much needed journey for food & safety the trio come across an Angel being attacked by a group of other angels, who then rip the Angels wings off and leave him for dead. In an effort to help the angel, Penryn ends up bringing attention to her family and one of the attackers makes off with her sister in revenge for Penryns interference. Penryn is determined to find her and bring her back to safety and she is not above using the wounded angel for information. They form an unlikely alliance as Penryn heads to angel HQ along with Raffe, the angel to save her sister and make an angel fly again…. But the journey is fraught with danger & neither are prepared for what awaits them.

Angelfall is a book I wouldn’t normally have picked up, I don’t usually like both the dystopian genre & books involving Angels but took a chance on this and I have to say that it is one of the better ones I have read. I liked the fact that our preconceived notions about angels are put to the test as they become things to be feared by humankind & it gives something to think about. Penryn is a character worthy of admiration for her determination to rescue her sister & keep her family together. I think when she rescued Raffe she may have thought it was for her own ends but as they travel together, she sees him, an angel, in a different light. The same with Raffe, I think he underestimated the humans and Pen is a great person to show him just how- She helps him, gives him food, cares for his injuries, protects him, as if he was human like her and I think that compassion has a profound effect on him. I like it when two opposing sides come together and get to know that they each aren’t so bad and there’s always another perspective to view things from. As I said , I liked the new take on angels and quite different from the usual books, I would have liked to have known more about their arrival and their goals but it’s a first book so I can’t expect that. I’m really intrigued by Pen’s mother and her ‘mental condition’ and how this is going to play out because I’m feeling this is a major factor in the plot. I’m also glad that this didn’t just turn into a journey story as dystopian's tend to, where they need to get from a to b and avoid the bad guys and to awaiting safety. In this, they were headed towards danger, uncertainty and probable death which gave it a really exciting feel, knowing that the journey was just the half of it, plus I liked what happened along the way especially the camp they encountered which will probably feature heavily in the sequel. The ending also gave a different feel, like a sci-fi feel which definitely left me excited for more and I NEED Raffe to know what he didn’t at the end. 

All in all though, this was a really good read and I will definitely read the sequel, which considering this book is 2 years old had best be coming soon ;)