Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Review: The Fallen

Title: The Fallen
Series: The Fallen, #1
Author: Thomas E. Sniegoski
Release Date: March 5, 2003
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Cover Designer:
 N/A
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Paranormal
Tagline: Aaron Corbet isn't a bad kid—he's just a little different.
Summary: 
On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, Aaron dreams of a darkly violent landscape. He can hear the sounds of weapons clanging, the screams of the stricken, and another sound he cannot quite decipher. But gazing upward at the sky, he suddenly understands. It is the sound of great wings, angels' wings, beating the air unmercifully as hundreds of armored warriors descend on the battlefield.
Orphaned since birth, Aaron is suddenly discovering newfound—and sometimes supernatural—talents. But it's not until he is approached by two men that he learns the truth about his destiny, and his role as a liaison between angels, mortals, and Powers both good and evil, some of whom are hell-bent on his destruction....

My Review:
I wanted to like this book. I wanted to believe that Unearthly is not the only good YA angel book out there.
However, I was disappointed once again. I received the first two books in this series, The Fallen and Leviathan, in one volume. I had to make myself finish The Fallen.

The writing was very stiff and stand-offish. I could not connect with Aaron at all. When we’re given back-story about the angels, I almost felt like I was reading the Bible because of the way it was written.
I know this book came long before most of today’s popular YA angel books, but the angel lore hardly had anything original to offer. Aside from a prophecy and a group of evil angels called the Powers, it was almost verbatim to the angels of the Bible. Now, there’s nothing wrong with books based on Biblical legends, but I prefer those legends to be dark and twisted (a la Prophecy of the Sisters).

As for the romance? It was completely unnecessary and did not contribute anything to the plot. The Brazilian girl whose name I can’t even remember was such a flat character. I felt like the author thought he just had to have romance because of the silly train of thought that “all YA books need romance”. Hence, romance that was nothing more than filler content.

For lack of anything else positive to say, I enjoyed reading the few battle scenes in this book. But overall, I don’t regret donating my copy to the library. Reading time has become precious to me, and I’m not going to spend it continuing this series simply to see if it gets better.
★★

1 comment:

  1. Oh dear, I brought this book a couple of weeks ago and I was really looking forward to reading it! Sorry you were so disappointed with it!

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