A Review for Angelbound (Angelbound #1) by Christina Bauer

Posted by Melanie
Release Date:  December 17th, 2013
Finished Date: November 26th, 2013

Publishers: Ink Monster LLC
Genre: YA , Paranormal, Romance
Source: For Review

Format: eARC
Pages: 532

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US 

Eighteen year old Myla Lewis is a girl who loves two things: kicking ass and kicking ass. She’s not your every day quasi-demon, half-demon and half-human, girl. For the past five years, Myla has lived for the days she gets to fight in Purgatory’s arena. When souls want a trial by combat for their right to enter heaven or hell, they go up against her, and she hasn’t lost a battle yet.

But as she starts her senior year at Purgatory High, the arena fights aren’t enough to keep her spirits up anymore. When the demons start to act weird, even for demons, and the King of the Demons, Armageddon, shows up at Myla’s school, she knows that things are changing and it’s not looking good for the quasi-demons. Myla starts to question everything, and doesn’t like the answers she finds. What happened seventeen years ago that turned the quasi-demons into slave labor? Why was her mom always so sad? And why won’t anyone tell her who her father is? Things heat up when Myla meets Lincoln, the High Prince of the Thrax, a super sexy half-human and half-angel demon hunter. But what’s a quasi-demon girl to do when she falls for a demon hunter? It’s a good thing that Myla’s not afraid of breaking a few rules. With a love worth fighting for, Myla’s going to shake up Purgatory.

The Review: Angelbound was an excellent start to the series of the same name and I thought it was a fun & original. All of the characters are likeable, particularly our main characters Myla & Lincoln. Myla definitely stole the show, she’s fun, she’s confident, she’s full of attitude and totally kicks ass in every way! I love that she’s tough and has been fighting in ‘the arena’ since she was 12, you would expect her to be hardened by that but she’s not… she loves doing it, it’s like her lives work to catalogue the strengths & weaknesses of the demons she fights and she still retains her fun loving optimistic view of life. I really loved when Myla & Lincoln meet, I love a relationship that starts off with arguments & bickering, a love/hate thing, which is such a refreshing change to the insta love, I’m not saying you don’t feel their connection from the onset because you do, it just takes a while for them to realise what it is and that always means fun for the reader. Their relationship is so easy when they give each other a chance and they complement each other so well, making them a great team and you just know they’re going to cause waves because both of them together just radiate mischief. The world the author has created was very original in its structure and I loved the history of it and its inhabitants which all worked together very well and was a great background to the story. I liked that we have certain groups of beings – angels, demons, ghouls, thrax, quasis – and that within these groups are differences again, they all have their own ways, their own magic, histories and traditions which brings different aspects to the world. The bad guy was great but slightly underused in my opinion, I would have loved Myla to have had some run ins with him but I liked how he radiates fear & despair and was curious for more of his story. The main focus of course was Myla, a lot had been kept from her and there are a lot of secrets surrounding her & her parents that are going to come to light throughout the book which I loved, I did cotton on pretty early what was happening but that didn’t matter here because I really enjoyed finding it all out and I enjoyed the way Myla discovered some of the past that was giving her clues to who she really was and I really liked how that in turn shaped Myla into the person she became. I thought the arena scenes were good, with plenty of action, I like what Myla does there and I especially liked the Thrax introduction & display. To be honest I don’t think there was anything that I didn’t like about the whole thing – we got a great story in a great setting filled with fun, action, secrets, power plays, first love and a quasi girl (with a tail that has a mind of its own)set on shaking things up big style! I can’t wait for more.