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claudiearseneault's review
3.0
This is one of the most difficult review I’ve had to write in... quite a while. Maybe ever. I went into GOOD ANGEL knowing I had in my hands an indie novel with more than one asexual and aromantic character, from an author who was on both spectrum, and I knew it dealt explicitly with exploration and questioning through the story. Two author friends had enjoyed it. I was more than ready to fall in love.
And at first I did. Iofiel is sweet and naive and only really wants to help everyone, and Archie the poor imp is exactly my kind of character (I love Archie to pieces). Their meeting is fun, and the story takes off in fun and often unexpected ways. Between Santiago and Damien and Maalik, the surrounding cast of characters is intriguing, and I was looking forward to see their friendship evolve. Then the plot happened, and the things I loved about this story started falling by the wayside, and the things I was wary of took more and more room.
A lot of this rating isn’t so much faults in the book itself, as the fact it wasn’t for me. This is intensely personal, but I don’t deal well with determinism (your fate is decided ahead), even less so when it is combined with inherent goodness and evil. And while GOOD ANGEL started playing with these lines and blurring them early on, it quickly falls back on them as Absolute Sides. I found the way this interacted with relationships between characters to be irritating at best, and infuriating on a regular basis. I had found myself wondering if this nice group of people were more than friends of circumstances, and the second half of the novel felt like a huge confirmation of this.An excellent example of this is that when Iofiel finally reveals to her demon friends that the End (as in, the apocalypse) is coming and she has a role to play in it, no one is willing to try to find a third way. Nope. Everyone reverts to “welp. We’re angels and demons so we’re enemies and whatever we have had for the last few months doesn’t mean enough to fight for it”.
There are a few other things that manage to knock this down for me--the huge mood whiplash around 75 %, along with this book committing one of my biggest writing sin (haha): narrator withholding information from the reader for a "twist" or a "surprise". That last, combined with how I already struggled with the second part, really knocked the rating down to 3 instead of 4.
And now I feel like I've only really talked about what didn't work. I mainly picked up GOOD ANGEL for the asexual and aromantic rep, however, and in that regards it does wonderful and unique things. It's not perfect (I have a lot of thoughts I want to put in a blog post), but it contains several characters that regularly discuss their (a)sexuality, question the nature of attraction (romantic and sexual both), and try out things. I did expect a little ... more ... introspection, I think? But Iofiel is quite clearly still questioning where she falls on both aro and ace spectrum. And it's also quite a different experience to evolve in a world where aceness and aroness are assumed as defaults.
In short, I wish GOOD ANGEL had stayed to the kind of storylines the first half of the book was giving me, with its lightheartedness and slow blurring of lines and building of friendships. The main problem with this book is that it promises one type of story--one at which it excels--and then it delivers another (one at which it's ok). But it's a good story, and if you're craving ace rep, this is an unique example, and I definitely recommend checking it out.
And at first I did. Iofiel is sweet and naive and only really wants to help everyone, and Archie the poor imp is exactly my kind of character (I love Archie to pieces). Their meeting is fun, and the story takes off in fun and often unexpected ways. Between Santiago and Damien and Maalik, the surrounding cast of characters is intriguing, and I was looking forward to see their friendship evolve. Then the plot happened, and the things I loved about this story started falling by the wayside, and the things I was wary of took more and more room.
A lot of this rating isn’t so much faults in the book itself, as the fact it wasn’t for me. This is intensely personal, but I don’t deal well with determinism (your fate is decided ahead), even less so when it is combined with inherent goodness and evil. And while GOOD ANGEL started playing with these lines and blurring them early on, it quickly falls back on them as Absolute Sides. I found the way this interacted with relationships between characters to be irritating at best, and infuriating on a regular basis. I had found myself wondering if this nice group of people were more than friends of circumstances, and the second half of the novel felt like a huge confirmation of this.
There are a few other things that manage to knock this down for me--the huge mood whiplash around 75 %, along with this book committing one of my biggest writing sin (haha): narrator withholding information from the reader for a "twist" or a "surprise". That last, combined with how I already struggled with the second part, really knocked the rating down to 3 instead of 4.
And now I feel like I've only really talked about what didn't work. I mainly picked up GOOD ANGEL for the asexual and aromantic rep, however, and in that regards it does wonderful and unique things. It's not perfect (I have a lot of thoughts I want to put in a blog post), but it contains several characters that regularly discuss their (a)sexuality, question the nature of attraction (romantic and sexual both), and try out things. I did expect a little ... more ... introspection, I think? But Iofiel is quite clearly still questioning where she falls on both aro and ace spectrum. And it's also quite a different experience to evolve in a world where aceness and aroness are assumed as defaults.
In short, I wish GOOD ANGEL had stayed to the kind of storylines the first half of the book was giving me, with its lightheartedness and slow blurring of lines and building of friendships. The main problem with this book is that it promises one type of story--one at which it excels--and then it delivers another (one at which it's ok). But it's a good story, and if you're craving ace rep, this is an unique example, and I definitely recommend checking it out.
freyacath's review
4.0
(probably more of a 4.5) this was the sapphic book club’s april book of the month! it was like nothing i’ve ever read before, and that’s probably why i enjoyed it so much! it’s such an original concept and i found it fascinating. also the characters (i love the characters)! the ending had me so Shook, i need that sequel!!
localbeehunter's review
3.0
This book is April's Sapphic Book Club read hosted by @sapphicliterature.
"Humans are good."
"I know that, Blue. We literally exist to serve them."
"Yeah, but..." Iofiel was all at once too overwhelmed to think. "I love them."
★★★☆☆ |The beginning of this book got me invested instantly and I loved how it ended but I struggled with the middle for about 20 days... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Iofiel is an angel who befriends an imp and makes some unangelic decisions because of it. Also, there's The Apocalypse happening at some point.
What I liked:
★Iofiel - she's curious and energetic and her feelings are So Intense..
★at the beginning Maalik annoyed me a bit but this pink eyed crop-top loving boy grew on me...
★DAMIEN AND SANTIAGO - they were amazing both as a couple and as individuals: they had marvellous chemistry and I liked little things about them like Damien's love of poetry
★Damien and Santiago being basically a married couple
★MORNINGSTAR - I know that he hates me along with all humans but every scene with him was enjoyable
★
★LUPE!
★I liked that angels were supposed to be triple-A by default (agender-asexual-aromantic) since their society is constructed differently
★this book is a meme factory and the dialogues were hilarious pretty often
★worldbuilding was great actually? I'm not big on angel stories but I liked this concept
What I didn't like:
☆Iofiel? - some of her decisions started to annoy me.. I get that she started as a naive soul but for how long you can be like this... I feel like for some time she got too little development
☆Archie - at times I felt that he was ok but I can't recall much of his personality besides being whiny?
☆I felt like a lot of stuff was repeated again and again... Like, sometimes paragraphs contained the same info as the paragraph above and some things kept running in circles...
☆most of Maalik/Iofiel? - I kinda liked them by the end but at the beginning, I felt like they had a sibling dynamics and it was awkward for a while...
☆for an agender-by-default society there weren’t much of agender angels that were central to the story
☆it may be a meme factory but still, some of the jokes fell flat... I hate when things try to be funny and end up opposite and I had some of those moments in here
☆this Apocalypse thing took a while to unravel and with all the side angel/demon school stuff I feel like I didn't 'get' everything
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mxhermit's review
3.0
The premise for this book is what convinced me to accept the author's request to review it. Heaven and Hell making a truce, angels and demons forced together in a University setting, and then that one pair that throws a wrench in everything.
Iofiel, the angel that is one of the main characters, seemed like she'd be a really good MC for an anime. I could easily picture her as the cheerful sort transferring to a new school, dealing with an uptight roommate, and making the "wrong" friend. It was interesting to watch her get used to her corporeal form, including feelings like hunger. Someone get this angel a plate of chili cheese fries!
Iofiel's roommate, Maalik, was a bit of a pain. As described in the synopsis, he's uptight and I get that, considering all of the rules that angels have and are expected to live up to. It just wore on me after a bit, all of his strictness. Iofiel's new friend, Archie the Imp, was one of my favorite characters. He was born/made an Imp, a sort of demon but not really in most eyes, but he's doing his best: studying soul stealing, practicing magic, all the things that would make him a good demon. Despite all the problems he runs into, including non-stop bullying from his fellow students, he persists. I admired that in him.
Good Angel delves deeper into the creation and categorization of angels and demons than most other books I've seen. This book mentioned the classifications, what they looked like (multiple arms, animal heads, etc.) rather than going with the popular film interpretation of model looking human with a pair of giant wings.
This being a very diverse, LGBT+ inclusive book, I thought a particular scene between Iofiel and some of the other angels was interesting. When they were discussing sexuality, both in humans and angels, there was mention that angels had a "heavenly standard": angels are supposed to be triple A angels: asexual, aromantic, agender. It was interesting to see this "default" being discussed, much as a lot of people in the human world assume heteronormative relationships are the default. The angels discussed how a lot of them didn't follow this standard, experimented to discover who they are, and how little sins were not that bad in the grand scheme of things. There are angels questioning their gender, their sexuality, and coming to terms with that. It opens Iofiel's mind to the possibility of life outside of the cookie cutter standard that she was born with, that beings take many forms, including their outlook on sexuality, romantic spectrum, and gender.
There were some inconsistencies that didn't affect the overall story, I thought, but took me out of the reading experience for a minute while I puzzled over it, such as when Iofiel doesn't know the name of the room she's in for a meal and then a moment later uses the correct word (cafeteria). The pacing was decent enough in the getting from Iofiel's first day at the University to the coming of the End Times, though there were times when I felt it slowed down and made things drag.
An independently published novel about angels, demons, and their various roles in the course of their own lives and humanity, A.M. Baushild has crafted an interesting story that questions a lot, shows possibility, and delivers a good tale about a cast of characters that ran the gamut of alignment from, as far as I could tell, lawful good to chaotic evil.
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Iofiel, the angel that is one of the main characters, seemed like she'd be a really good MC for an anime. I could easily picture her as the cheerful sort transferring to a new school, dealing with an uptight roommate, and making the "wrong" friend. It was interesting to watch her get used to her corporeal form, including feelings like hunger. Someone get this angel a plate of chili cheese fries!
Iofiel's roommate, Maalik, was a bit of a pain. As described in the synopsis, he's uptight and I get that, considering all of the rules that angels have and are expected to live up to. It just wore on me after a bit, all of his strictness. Iofiel's new friend, Archie the Imp, was one of my favorite characters. He was born/made an Imp, a sort of demon but not really in most eyes, but he's doing his best: studying soul stealing, practicing magic, all the things that would make him a good demon. Despite all the problems he runs into, including non-stop bullying from his fellow students, he persists. I admired that in him.
Good Angel delves deeper into the creation and categorization of angels and demons than most other books I've seen. This book mentioned the classifications, what they looked like (multiple arms, animal heads, etc.) rather than going with the popular film interpretation of model looking human with a pair of giant wings.
This being a very diverse, LGBT+ inclusive book, I thought a particular scene between Iofiel and some of the other angels was interesting. When they were discussing sexuality, both in humans and angels, there was mention that angels had a "heavenly standard": angels are supposed to be triple A angels: asexual, aromantic, agender. It was interesting to see this "default" being discussed, much as a lot of people in the human world assume heteronormative relationships are the default. The angels discussed how a lot of them didn't follow this standard, experimented to discover who they are, and how little sins were not that bad in the grand scheme of things. There are angels questioning their gender, their sexuality, and coming to terms with that. It opens Iofiel's mind to the possibility of life outside of the cookie cutter standard that she was born with, that beings take many forms, including their outlook on sexuality, romantic spectrum, and gender.
There were some inconsistencies that didn't affect the overall story, I thought, but took me out of the reading experience for a minute while I puzzled over it, such as when Iofiel doesn't know the name of the room she's in for a meal and then a moment later uses the correct word (cafeteria). The pacing was decent enough in the getting from Iofiel's first day at the University to the coming of the End Times, though there were times when I felt it slowed down and made things drag.
An independently published novel about angels, demons, and their various roles in the course of their own lives and humanity, A.M. Baushild has crafted an interesting story that questions a lot, shows possibility, and delivers a good tale about a cast of characters that ran the gamut of alignment from, as far as I could tell, lawful good to chaotic evil.
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
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