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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
It was impossible to forget that this novel was written by a teenager. I had the sense while reading it that it was meant to be romantic, but honestly it just made me despair for the youth of today if this is what’s considered romance. Also, I realise that this is a book about angels and heaven and whatnot, but what’s with the sex-negative viewpoint? I think that’s a really unhealthy message to be sending to the target audience of these books. I certainly won’t be reading the rest of the books in this trilogy, that’s for sure. I don’t think that all teenagers are bad writers, but this one is. I can only hope that she has improved with age.
I don't like the way Bethany's mind work! It doesn't fit for an angel! She's just so stupid!!!
I loved the book but I can't give is a higher rating because some parts of the book got kind of preachy for my taste
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
On the plus side; I found Alexandra Adornetto's writing very, very pretty. She wasn't silly or inappropriately funny and it reminded me a lot of Twilight- in a good way. Bethany was a mild character, though. She didn't actually *do* anything. I didn't find her particularly interesting. She seemed to have a lot of disdain for most humans aside from Xavier until half way through the book, which didn't set well with me. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that the author didn't seem to have much depth of view on being a teenager. I recently saw Melissa de la Cruz say that there's a reason that most Young Adult writers are in their thirties- they have perspective on why they made the choices they-- and their peers-- did in high school. That perspective comes in comparison to other experiences later in life-- like college loves, college classes, first professional jobs, and the first time you must make a really difficult grey-area decision without your parents there to decide for you. Adornetto seems to be missing that perspective. Bethany's choices were all black-and-white. She was extremely impulsive and at times, only thinking of herself. Having a mortal human love for a temporary amount of time while risking being cast out of heaven for forever seemed more important than having an eternity in heaven with Gabriel, Ivy, AND Xavier as a possibility- this is what I mean about perspective. Maybe that's just the character of Bethany- thinking only in the short-term and the here-and-now.
I didn't like the relationship between Xavier and Bethany. Once they decided they were a couple, there were some heavy-handed awkward scenes that were telling, not showing, that Xavier was the good guy. I rolled my eyes when Chris Bucknall had Ivy in a corner and he never showed up in the rest of the novel and hadn't shown up before then, either. That scene, and the one right after that where Xavier showed up to rescue his angel girlfriend from a few druggies (while Bethany had been doing quite well on her own for a while, up until then) seemed a bit forced. And then, in the next scene, he mansplains how Bethany needs to eat a protein bar because he knows her body well enough that she'll get low blood sugar- that just got to me. I felt like I was seeing the editor's notes "we need a scene here that explains how Beth needs Xavier and how close they are" in the margins.
Oh and then there's Jake Thorn (what a dead give away- Thorn= Christ's crown that caused Him pain and blood that blinded Him at the Crucifixion) who was so obviously the bad guy. When she went with him to prom I was thinking in my best ghetto voice, "NO GURL, DON'T DO IT!" He was hitting on a teacher and making gross sexual comments about Xavier to Bethany earlier in the book for Pete's sake. Xavier could have attended on crutches and gone home early, that was certain. He wasn't passing out or anything from the concussion. The prom scene was unlike any prom I'd ever been to, as well. I don't know if Adornetto had ever been to an American prom or even asked an American group of teens what a prom was like. I've heard of small anti-dancing Christian Schools having proms like that, but that's about it. Most non-religious and public schools don't have proms with that much of a formal banquet. It's just dancing, dancing, dancing, prom queen and king, dancing, dancing, dancing, midnight, after-prom event sponsored by the PTO to keep the kids from drinking.
Molly seemed very shallow to me. She didn't have a problem with Bethany going out with Xavier after the humiliating experience of him turning her down. I'd have died if that had happened to me and then my bestie started dating same guy later. We wouldn't be friends for long, that's for certain unless I didn't put a lot of emotion into my boyfriends and relationships. It just felt like Bethany was sort of looking down her nose at Molly and Taylah and the rest of the girls. The train ride was weird- most American cities asides from the Midwest and Northeast don't have trains. Just saying. Venus Cove was situated either in Oregon or California since the ocean was in the west and it wasn't raining constantly like it would in Washington State.
Adornetto's views on religion, spirituality and sex are extremely Catholic, which is obvious when she talks about limbo. Bethany and Xavier never had actual sex, but they held each other naked overnight. See? That doesn't count that they were lusting after each other! A very Catholic notion that the thought doesn't count as a sin, which is debatable (I'm an ex-Catholic, so please excuse my misgivings towards the Catholic faith).
Overall, I can't say not to read the book. Adornetto has really made a feat as an eighteen-year-old publishing her first novel in the United States. She's really intelligent to have written something so well and to write such nice prose on top of that. I would not call her or her writing immature, but the fatal errors and the lack of character development in the novel show that her experience just quite wasn't there. Like I said before, she just doesn't have enough perspective due to her age. But I have to say that she is very accomplished and very smart to have written and queried a 484-page novel successfully. That deserves respect for all my complaining in this review and why I'm giving her 4 stars. I'm confident she'll grow up to be a very respected author and this is just proof of it, as long as she doesn't drink her own Kool-Aid.
I didn't like the relationship between Xavier and Bethany. Once they decided they were a couple, there were some heavy-handed awkward scenes that were telling, not showing, that Xavier was the good guy. I rolled my eyes when Chris Bucknall had Ivy in a corner and he never showed up in the rest of the novel and hadn't shown up before then, either. That scene, and the one right after that where Xavier showed up to rescue his angel girlfriend from a few druggies (while Bethany had been doing quite well on her own for a while, up until then) seemed a bit forced. And then, in the next scene, he mansplains how Bethany needs to eat a protein bar because he knows her body well enough that she'll get low blood sugar- that just got to me. I felt like I was seeing the editor's notes "we need a scene here that explains how Beth needs Xavier and how close they are" in the margins.
Oh and then there's Jake Thorn (what a dead give away- Thorn= Christ's crown that caused Him pain and blood that blinded Him at the Crucifixion) who was so obviously the bad guy. When she went with him to prom I was thinking in my best ghetto voice, "NO GURL, DON'T DO IT!" He was hitting on a teacher and making gross sexual comments about Xavier to Bethany earlier in the book for Pete's sake. Xavier could have attended on crutches and gone home early, that was certain. He wasn't passing out or anything from the concussion. The prom scene was unlike any prom I'd ever been to, as well. I don't know if Adornetto had ever been to an American prom or even asked an American group of teens what a prom was like. I've heard of small anti-dancing Christian Schools having proms like that, but that's about it. Most non-religious and public schools don't have proms with that much of a formal banquet. It's just dancing, dancing, dancing, prom queen and king, dancing, dancing, dancing, midnight, after-prom event sponsored by the PTO to keep the kids from drinking.
Molly seemed very shallow to me. She didn't have a problem with Bethany going out with Xavier after the humiliating experience of him turning her down. I'd have died if that had happened to me and then my bestie started dating same guy later. We wouldn't be friends for long, that's for certain unless I didn't put a lot of emotion into my boyfriends and relationships. It just felt like Bethany was sort of looking down her nose at Molly and Taylah and the rest of the girls. The train ride was weird- most American cities asides from the Midwest and Northeast don't have trains. Just saying. Venus Cove was situated either in Oregon or California since the ocean was in the west and it wasn't raining constantly like it would in Washington State.
Adornetto's views on religion, spirituality and sex are extremely Catholic, which is obvious when she talks about limbo. Bethany and Xavier never had actual sex, but they held each other naked overnight. See? That doesn't count that they were lusting after each other! A very Catholic notion that the thought doesn't count as a sin, which is debatable (I'm an ex-Catholic, so please excuse my misgivings towards the Catholic faith).
Overall, I can't say not to read the book. Adornetto has really made a feat as an eighteen-year-old publishing her first novel in the United States. She's really intelligent to have written something so well and to write such nice prose on top of that. I would not call her or her writing immature, but the fatal errors and the lack of character development in the novel show that her experience just quite wasn't there. Like I said before, she just doesn't have enough perspective due to her age. But I have to say that she is very accomplished and very smart to have written and queried a 484-page novel successfully. That deserves respect for all my complaining in this review and why I'm giving her 4 stars. I'm confident she'll grow up to be a very respected author and this is just proof of it, as long as she doesn't drink her own Kool-Aid.
i don't even want to finish this book. I know a book is bad when I don't even care about how it ends. when is is a romantic fantasy the characters need an amazing love connection, make you feel something when reading it. With Bethany and Xavier I feel nothing. don't judge this book by its cover, it is terrible.
Look for my review Nov. 4th on ldswbr.blogspot.com
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