Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Angelfall

I liked the book. The characters were "x" but the book was entertaining and left you wanting to continue reading. But despite the action in the book, I couldn't take seriously the danger that the protagonists went through (until the end).

I think the reason why I could not take the danger seriously is the writing, certain lines, and certain dialogues were very painful to read and felt ridiculous. Plus, sexism is added in the dumbest way someone can add sexism to a story (and it doesn't make sense either). And there were a lot of scenes that didn't make sense, they could have been skipped and it wouldn't make a big impact on the plot.

The characters were fine, nothing new. Penryn is a strong, determined girl (with "I'm not like other girls" vibes) and she cares a lot about her family. All the decisions she makes are for the good of her family and she protects them at all costs. Raffe is fine, that is, but it did bother me, sometimes, how ungrateful he was to Penryn but "x" I kinda understood at the end.

I don't think I'll read the next book, although the ending of this one was good, I don't see myself enjoying the next one. But this was a fun time.

If you like action, a forced proximity relationship, dystopia, and a strong protagonist who would do everything for her family, then go for it.

⚠️ SPOILERS ⚠️

The only thing I can say is that the time they spent in the town (the one that is forming the resistance) was very ridiculous. I do consider that she needed to spend time there because that way she meets the twins who end up helping her find her sister, but why add sexism? Why? It seemed to me that there was simply no reason to be. They are at the end of time, IN A WAR, they need hands to fight and they decide that women will only clean their silly clothes, what? Wtf.

I thought that the ending was good, I felt the danger that the protagonists were in and you can feel that both are worried about each other. I also loved when Penryn found her sister, it was a very good scene. But the final scene was disappointing to me.

“Sometimes, as we’re stumbling along in the dark, we hit something good.”

Content Warnings

gcaron0328's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Even though I liked it, I have a couple criticisms. One being the demonization of schizophrenia and the other being sl*t shaming.

the main character’s mother has schizophrenia and this is demonstrated by the mother being extremely violent and not mentally sound. It is hinted that in the past she injured her child in such a way that the child can no longer walk. The main character cannot reason with her mother. Much later in the story, the main character has to wear a revealing dress in order to get into the enemy lair. She refers to the outfit as sl*tty and judges the other women there who are wearing similar outfits in order to get the good graces of the enemy. It also is very anti-s*x work in that scene.<\spoiler> despite all this, i still liked the book and im excited to read the second one.

Content Warnings

madarauchiha's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.5

I'll be honest: I only read this because the author is a person of color. As much as I love and demand #OwnVoices, I recognize that we shouldn't be restricted to writing about only our experiences of color. And nor should Black authors be restricted to writing only about Black experiences. I think it's rather detrimental to think Black authors or Authors of Color can't write about anything under the sun if we wanted to.

That said, sometimes it doesn't always work out that well. Like this book, for example. Oh god, this book. If you liked this book fuck you. You are embarassing, you're ugly, your blood is disgusting, cashapp me 50 million dollars as an apology.

There's a part where the self insert main character meets a female angel [who are super rare for some reason??? Why is there only one sexy bitch??] and we get that evil misogynistic trope of the mc being plain jane and unattractive and this female angel being everything she isn't. Like when will we stop pitting women against each other for the sake of voting male love interests?

The prose is godawful. This is shitty marvel cinematic universe rip off levels of bad. They banter so wittily and it's nothing like actual real live human conversation.

Speaking of, there's a love interest? I guess? If you squint, it's there. The author is trying to set it up as a forbidden love but like cmon. This is being telegraphed from 2 inches away from your ear. By the way: the main character is a 17 yo human earth girl. A child. A CHILD. INFANTE. BABY. Are you genuinely telling me this old as fuck, ancienter-than-ent-testicles angel is romantically / sexually attracted to this underage girl child? Disgusting. Fuck you susan ee. [idk if Ents have testicle but Tolkien is dead so I'm taking over lotr canon, tyvm]

I didn't like any of the characters. MC was so flat and boring, a very overdone character we've all seen in ya and even generic, poorly written fantasy. It's like a rip off of that hunger games girl.

The ableism! Oof! What a mess. The little sister character who is essentially the Fancy Lamp plot device [not calling her sexy, she's underage cmon] and the plot kinda tosses her here and there. Does she have a personality? Not really. She's repeatedly called cr*ppled, and that is also used to describe other people. They call her wheelchair bound, as well. Also she magically

becomes no longer disabled due to heinous medical experimentation / torture

so we are graced with that fantastically ableist and ageist trope too.

Oh and the mother character [did she ever get named?] is mentally ill. This unnamed mental illness makes her so violently crazy that 1 she abused her youngest daughter into permanent disability 2 plays with corpses 3 rampantly and randomly murders people 4 hears voices that she calls 'demons' and sometimes obeys them.

The plot doesn't occur until maybe the last 10 percent of the book. The rest is a walking simulator. The concept of angelic hierarchy is kinda neat, as is the

scorpion children monsters

, and I liked the plot twist with Raffe. I wish someone else wrote this book, with a heavy editor on hand. It could've been interesting. Maybe it was, back in 2011, but in 2021 it's not stale, boring, rehashes the same damn tropes we were already sick of back then.

My moonreader app says this took 0.72 hours to read, and yes I was clicking through the pages at, like, 1 per second. This book gets no respect or attention span.

Content warnings [probably incomplete bc fuck paying attention to this book]:

Minor: whorephobic language, racism in calling a lil white girl the next Dalai Lama what the fuck susan,

Medium: cannibalism

Major: gore, wing trauma, blood, amputation, child abuse, ableist c slur, dogs, misogyny, sexual harassment, body horror, child death, murder, slavery, medical gore, medical abuse, experimentation, torture,

Content Warnings

eliterhate's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book made me feel things.

Content Warnings

chloheyyy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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