[REVIEW] Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Published: January 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins/Katherine Teagen
Age Group:  Young Adult
Series: Angelfire #2

Life as the Preliator is harder than Ellie ever imagined.
Balancing real life with the responsibility of being Heaven’s warrior is a challenge for Ellie. Her relationship with Will has become all business, though they both long for each other. And now that the secret of who she really is has come out, so have Hell’s strongest reapers. Grown bold and more vicious, the demonic threaten her in the light of day and stalk her in the night.

She’s been warned.
Cadan, a demonic reaper, comes to her with information about Bastian’s new plan to destroy Ellie’s soul and use an ancient relic to wake all the souls of the damned and unleash them upon humanity. As she fights to stay ahead of Bastian’s schemes , the revelations about those closest to her awaken a dark power within Ellie that threatens to destroy everything—including herself.

She’ll be betrayed.
Treachery comes even from those whom she loves, and Ellie is broken by the deaths of those who stood beside her in this Heavenly war. Still, she must find a way to save the world, herself, and her love for Will. If she fails, there will be hell to pay. (From Goodreads)

Firstly, it's been awhile since I read the first book so I had to read over my previous review. Well sadly I was not as excited by this one as I was before. I blame the fact that it's the middle book. I always dislike the middle book.

In Wings of the Wicked, Ellie has to face her destiny and her complicated relationship with Will, no different from the first novel. The only difference is the gravity of the situation.  both issues are now huge and play a large part in this book. The first part of the story was more focused on Ellie's relationship.  Honestly it was like a typical teen romance novel. I find Ellie and Will's relationship to be that of a soap opera. There is so much drama and honestly, I hate Ellie. I just really don't like her character.  I mean Will is absolutely  amazing and all Ellie does is hurt him and push him away. Arrrgh, what a stupid girl. Clearly I was frustrated with the majority of this story.  As Ellie says "I don't deserve you" (page 329) Damn right! Ellie, you don't deserve Will. Okay, now that that's off my chest back to the story.

The second part of the story was good. I think the reason why I liked it was because it focused more on the fight as oppose to the drama.  The second part was more similar to the first book (that I quite liked) as oppose to the first part.

Also is it just me, but when I read this series and they mention reapers, I picture something like this:
If anyone's wondering, the picture is from the anime Bleach.

Another problem I found in this story is that Courtney Allison Moulton writing is very basic and it doesn't do much to get me hooked to the story line, characters and plot. In fact there are also very abrupt changes in emotion (sort of like mood swings!) that make it very hard to relate to the chracters situation and what they're feeling. For instance, Ellie may be mad for 4 pages and than all of a sudden, she's happy! Yay...except I had no idea how it happened...

There's also a very obvious plot line.  And the amount of time passed doesn't really make sense either. It's sort of a very predictable, confusing story (for me at least.)

Lastly, there seems to always be a character that is used to explain what happens in the story. Caden was a messanger in this story. He appears out of nowhere, says or does something important and then leaves.  He's also suppose to be the other person in Ellie's love traingle...but he does a pretty bad job at it.

It hurts me to say this but the ending was quite interesting. The cliffhanger was truly a cliffhanger and I felt really attached to it. Its quite sad that it took me that long to finally enjoy this book. 


I think it's fairly obvious that I wasn't pleased with this book.  Like I said before, I usually hate the middle book in a trilogy so here's hoping the last one will be better!

MEH

[REVIEW] Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Published: September 2011
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Series: Medusa Girls #1

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.(From Goodreads)

This book is a story adapted off the whole Medusa story.  Clearly I read this book during my "mythology books faze" (hence, the mythology) and I must say that it was an interesting book.

First, when I saw that there would be more than one main narrator, I got nervous. I don't like more than two narrators just that I find more than two tends to ruin the book for me since I get so confused trying to keep track as to what happened but Tera Lynn Childs does an excellent job making all three of the sisters flow when they tell they're story.  She also does a really good job giving each of them a distinct personality that makes it harder to mix them up, making it easier for me to read it.  I was never lost during this book, or confused as to who was speaking - which is good, very good. I also really liked the varying personalities.  Sometimes it gets monotonous with one speaker, especially if they're very boring but all three of these main characters has a distinct manner and it's intersting to be reading one chapter with a concerned narrator to a chapter with a narrator who is a fashionista.  I enjoyed that imensely.
My one concern about this many narators is that each narrator has a different love interest, which may get confusing later on in the story.  Can't wait to see what will happen.

Second, the whole concept of this book is old but new - modernized I should say.  The whole monsters coming out of portals and only the chosen one can see who they are has been done over and over again. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is sort of like that so if you're a Buffy fan, definitely give this book a try.  Anyway, the one thing I found unique about this is the whole spin off the Gorgon sisters.  Perhaps I've just never read a story with it before but the way the myth was integrated into the story was amazing.  It really did sound normal, in the context of the story of course.

Lastly, I have to say that the cover was what first attracted me.  I'm a firm believer that if a cover sucks, you're not going to enjoy the story as much.  Seeing this cover, I had already a sense that I would like it and of course I did so bravo whoever designed the cover. You did an amazing job!

So if you're a fan of mythological inspired fiction (i.e. Everneath) and enjoy good old action than you'll definitely enjoy this book.

MEH