Rating: 3/10
Books Like This: Hades, Fallen, Hush Hush
For People Who Like: Angels, Religious Background, Romance
*Spoilers Ahead*
Synopsis:
Three angels are sent down to bring good to the world: Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, a teenage girl who is the least experienced of the trio. But she is the most human, and when she is romantically drawn to a mortal boy, the angels fear she will not be strong enough to save anyone—especially herself—from the Dark Forces.
Is love a great enough power against evil?
Introduction:
Halo is the first book in the Halo Trilogy by Alexandra Adornetto. So, I read this book a couple years ago (I think) and I didn't realize this until after I had already gotten the book. I was initially drawn to this book because of the angel aspect, I love seeing how different authors portray angels and heaven. The forbidden romance just helped push me to get this book and then again to reread it.
Rating Explanation/Review:
So.....this book was....annoying. Bethany was just so naïve sometimes and sometimes she suspected people too early and over reacted. Overall, she was just so inconsistent. For example, when Jake Thorn (potential second love interest) first came to the school she got bad vibes from him and she didn't do ANYTHING about it. And then later, he touched her arm and burned her but, did she suspect anything? NO. After that, her powers stop working which started right after he got there. Still Bethany REFUSED to see the obvious. Even after that when Jake came to her house, Gabriel, Ivy AND Xavier got a bad feeling from him and she STILL wants to be his friend. I mean, REALLY? Alexandra, you couldn't have made her at least TRY to stay away from him? Also, right after she got a bad feeling about him (and ignored it) he wrote down on a piece of paper, "She had the face of an angel," or something like that and she immediately goes to confront him about it. If she had just stopped to think that maybe he was just testing her to see how she would react and when she blew up in his face that only solidified his suspicions.
Another thing that annoyed me was Xavier. Don't get me wrong, I love a good forbidden romance story and I loved Xavier's character. I just wish Alexandra had given him a flaw so it wouldn't be so obvious that he wasn't completely human. Like no human is as perfect as Xavier is. I mean he got jealous like once in the book, but he suppressed it because he wanted Bethany to have a good time at the prom which only served to make him a more selfless and perfect person.
Another thing that irritated me was how Bethany kept grouping all humans together even though at this point she's more human than angel. Not to mention that she supposedly was around humans more because she was an angle that helped with humans find peace when they die. What I mean when I said that she grouped humans together was that he kept saying things like, "How humans could look at the news and ignore the horror of the world didn't make any sense to me." [Keep in mine these are not exact quotes.] Like okay, but you aren't really helping the problem all that much either and there are humans who are trying to help the people who are struggling in the world. They are just limited by things like mortality and other humans.
One more thing that I didn't like about the book was that it was very closed minded in terms of the whole religious context of it. I mean, I can understand that angels don't go around doing miracles or anything but they could be a bit less....subtle. I mean the only one who was really doing anything was Ivy (Bethany's older sister) and she was pretty much just doing community service. I mean, Gabriel teaches music at the high school (because that's a sure way to help humanity) and Bethany literally doesn't do ANYTHIING. She might visit the nursing home once in the whole book. Also, none of the important characters in the book are a minority race or ugly for that matter. It was really sad to me that there was no diversity in this book. It's pretty cookie cutter in terms of the characters.
Overall, this book could've been better. The fact that this is a "National Bestseller" (yes, it actually says that on the cover) was very surprising to me because I haven't seen a lot of good reviews for this book. The descriptions weren't bad and I don't think I ever forgot what someone looked like which is a big pet peeve for me. If you want to read it go ahead and tell me what you think in the comments or email me.
Alexandra Adornetto, I wish you luck on all of your future endeavors.
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