Review by applesodaperson - Angels Before Man

applesodaperson 's review for:

Angels Before Man by rafael nicolás

5.0

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Absolutely stunning!!!! This book was beyond breathtaking, and on top of that the writing was incredible. I would highly recommend reading this book if you are ex-religious, or queer, or both. Not that I don’t think you can enjoy this book if you aren’t, I just think it might speak more deeply to people that fit into those categories, at least it did for me.

I’ll get into the deep analysis in a minute, but on a base level, this book was just entertaining. The setting was super interesting, and I love the ways heaven was described as being perfect, and quiet, and almost sterile and unchanging. And that compared to Earth being dirty and ruled by beasts. I also loved the characters so much. Giving each of the angels a talent/label made it easier to keep track of who was who, and I love how the book described how long they have all been alive. I think relationships with others and yourself would be a lot different if you didn’t know death and lived for millions of years. I would say that the theme in this book that stood out to me the most was the idea of finding your purpose in life, as Lucifer tries to do for a lot of the book. That is something that I have been dealing with a lot recently, and am honestly still trying to figure out.

Now for some religious analysis. To preface, I am not necessarily talking about your god! I am talking about the character of god in this book. So anyways, god is absolutely the villain of this book. He tortures and expects angels to see it as love. He gives the angels agency and then expects them to be absolutely perfect and to always follow him. He also sees love, specifically romantic love, as a sin. The scenes where he invites some angels to come sing to him were actually pretty sickening because he bestows his company like it is the greatest gift ever and makes the angels feed him by hand. Like maybe you don’t deserve love if you have to force people to love you. I just thought it was so interesting to read a book where they didn’t shy away from god’s capacity for bad. And I also do think Lucifer does some awful things too, but the book makes it clear how god’s action pushed Lucifer to that point.

Anyways I loved this book so much that the second I finished it on Libby I instantly went and bought a physical copy of it.

Content Warnings