L.A. Weatherly provides a new spin on angels in her latest book, Angel Burn. Willow is a half angel living in Upstate NY, she’s kind of my county neighbor, pretty much. This would be fine and dandy except in Angel Burn, L.A. Weatherly’s angels are villainous and want to suck your life force for sustenance. Cue Alex, an AK otherwise known as Angel Killer, who is on a mission to kill Willow and any other angles he comes across. He finds himself unable to do so and what ensues is adventures as the duo finds themselves on the run from the cult-esque Church Of Angels.
Angel Burn
Angel Burn started off well enough. I thought the new mythos was pretty slammin’, and liked how badass Alex was. Plus Willow had interesting personality quirks, like being really interested in cars. However, the rest of the story did not follow through on the awesome factor. First of all, there isn’t quite instalove, but it’s breakneck fast, how quick those kids believe they are TLA true love always. I mean, they use the L word after pretty much a week, and while that week they spent about two days hating each other and the other three macking on each other all over the page. Also, Willow and Alex were ready to make life sacrifices for each other at what seemed to be the drop of a hat. Too much, too soon I say. However, the angel mythology is really cool. I liked how the angels did more than pine. Yes, that is a sincere compliment. However, Angel Burn went on for WAY TOO LONG, the audiobook being 14 hours and 29 minutes long. Maybe if the characters stopped fricken ‘gazing’ at each other and ‘murmuring’, the pace would have been comfortable. Instead, I thought this book takes a cool, page turning concept and MEANDERS. It was just so slow and I was like ‘do I really have x amount of hours left?’. Especially when several points would have created a logical resolution but then IT JUST KEPT GOING. Yet, the narrator Cassandra Campbell does the best she can with the material given. She changes her voicing up for the characters. For instance, parts of the chapters are through Alex’s point of view, so she does a male voice for those chapters. Plus she does a mean evil British accent well. I thought she sounded a tad old for the character of Willow, but then realized that it is appropriate given Willow’s adult-like characteristics. I will listen to more of Cassandra Campbell’s narrations, but unfortunately will be dropping this series as it’s guilty of things that just turn me off as a reader, but perhaps those are your reader turn-ons? Audio produced by Candlewick on Brilliance Audio. Disclosure: Obtained at BEA.
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I love audiobooks, but I have discovered that it really uncovers some bad writing…it stands out more…
I will now think of Angel Burn as That One Book Filled with Murmur-Gazers! Heeee.
I have this on my shelf to review, and can’t wait to see if our opinions match, for they usually do!
Thanks! xoxo
hmmm. i’ve heard mixed things about this book. i’m not excited that it worries me that it’s super long AND part of a series…
nice job with the balanced review!
As a rule I don’t usually read angel fiction because I’ve hated most of it. I did download the free sampler of Angel Burn on my Kindle but haven’t read it. Thanks for your honest and kind of funny review. I am pretty sure I can skip this one.