Rating: 5/5 stars
Plot:
"In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy
thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back
together what's left of the modern world.
When a group of people capture
Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a
massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.
Penryn drives through the streets of
San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is
everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans
where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying
extent to which the angels are willing to go.
Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his
wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place
as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping
Penryn survive, which will he choose?"
Review:
A couple of days ago I read and
reviewed Angelfall, the first book in this series. I moaned that I had bought
the book full price a few months back, only to see it on promotion the day
after. Well, yesterday I saw World After reduced to half price and figured it
was the universe readjusting itself. Naturally, I bought it.
I wasn’t too impressed by
Angelfall’s ending. The rest of the book I loved but the ending just didn’t
work for me. It’s my problem, and not a problem with the book, but it would
have delayed my buying the sequel for a while had I not seen it going cheap.
However, World After picks up right away. It’s got a very similar tone to
Angelfall and, in many ways, a similar plot. Penryn quests for her sister while
Raffe, who gets less page time, quests for his wings.
Something I liked a lot about
Angelfall was the focus on secondary characters and this was a strength that
continues in World After. Although Penryn is the focus of this novel we meet
new characters along the way, and follow some of the old ones too. I think my
favourite ‘other’ character has to be Clara. She tags along with Penryn and
therefore is in the background, however, her own journey is really just as
great. I didn’t even realize we’d been following her story until in concluded
(as much as anything can).
I mentioned that Raffe wasn’t as
prominently featured in this book but I didn’t really miss him. Penryn is a
strong enough character to keep things going, perhaps a little too strong, and
she’s interesting enough to keep the reader engaged. However, when Raffe turns
up I found myself enjoying the book even more. It’s as though Ee’s writing
style becomes more imaginative and vibrant when Raffe is present in a scene. Whereas
the humour earlier in the book made me smile, I found myself laughing at things
once Raffe was back. Part of me thinks the author must really like writing his
character!
I also liked the ending a lot more.
As always, I won’t include any spoilerish information but I feel that this
ending feels better. Obviously, the last one was pretty good too because it led
onto this book but you know what I mean! The best part of this book, and
probably the series, is that I don’t know what will happen next but I trust Ee
to construct the happenings in such a way that I believe in them!
I bought this book in paperback format but the kindle edition is exceptionally good value if you click here (or indeed if you do a search on Amazon for yourself)!
No comments:
Post a Comment