Strange Angels - Review & Giveaway

	Title Strange Angels Author Lili St. Crow Genre YA Paranormal Urban Fantasy Publisher  razorbill Publishing Date May 14, 2009 How I Got This Book Half-Price Books Paperback 293pg Stand alone or Series Strange Angels #1    My Average 29 pg/day    Reading Difficulty 4.5 Also, this book is probably PG-13 (on a scale of 1-5 5 = dictionary vernacular)
Bad-Ass-In-Training

In Strange Angels, Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.) Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her?



I saw a list on Goodreads, the best books no one's heard of, and I happened to have this book on my shelf. So not only was it on my TBR Pile, but people have said it's a diamond in the ruff. Of coarse I had to read it next. I'm glad I did. This book reminded me of my favorite series, the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. Dru is a teenage Kate Daniels. If you've read any of the series, you'd know that Kate is a bad-ass chick who doesn't take shit or direction from anyone, except Curan on a rare occasion. Dru is pretty much like that, only younger and less experienced... so she takes some direction from a rare hand-full of people.

This novel is probably the most realistic YA novel when it comes to language based on the situation. When shit goes down, cuss words spew from your mouth, especially if you are a high school kid, raised by a military father. Cuss happens.


Woohoo!:
I love the attitude, and the language. Yes, there were a few more cuss words than usual in this novel, but it is completely realistic to the situation. You wouldn't say "oh pudding sticks" when a zombie breaks into your house headed straight for your brain with hunger spiked in it's eyes and drool dripping onto your carpet. Words you didn't even know you knew would spew from your lips like vomit.

Character development of the main character moves backwards. What!? Yeah, I can't say I've read a book before where the main character starts out as a bad-ass (or so you, and she/he think) then becomes less knowledgeable, less bad-ass as an overwhelming amount of information and people 20 times stronger than her/him show up. This is such a different idea. Usually characters seem to grow, not shrink.

Goth Asian. Need I say more? We live in a diverse world, there should be diverse characters. how much more diverse can you get with an Asian goth sidekick?

The ending was pretty cool. I never would have guessed how Chris expected to extract Dru from the city. I was surprised. To top it off, it does a fantastic job of leading you into the next book. Forcing your hand at the bookstore. "BUY ME! DO IT!"
"Why yes, strange hypnotic voice in my head, I think I will buy BETRAYALS. Thanks for suggesting it."

       [[side note: why does this font, that I love so much, like to put my quotation marks backwards??]]

Intriguing story line and world development. All of the things that go bump in the night are represented here. It's sort of like the evil version of Monsters Inc, the version where Sully doesn't want to cuddle, he want's to rip your face off and eat it with a nice sprinkling of caviar.

Meeh:
St. Crow is a poet with her descriptions and similes, but at times, I felt like it was too much. The unique descriptions slowed down the pace of the novel just slightly. Sometimes, you just want the author to say "the car wouldn't start" instead of "the rusted behemoth choked on the content in it's tank. Tongues of smoke licked the air before dying in the blistering frozen atmosphere." Too much.

5 pages before the end of the book, I say Meeh. Why you ask? Because the way St. Crow handled the villain was confusing and there wasn't any closure. You didn't really see what happened to him. There was an onslaught of bodies, then you are ripped out of the scene, only to sort of find out what happened second hand. Not dead. (sorry if this spoils the book, though I don't think it will). There should be some sort of closure in a book, even though it's the first in a sequel, close some loos ends for Gods sake. Kill off the villain, develop larger threats. Maybe the villain is actually working under someone? You kill him off, now you have a bigger threat to deal with, but at least you ended one loose end. 


Rating:A

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***Giveaway***

One (1) paperback copy of Strange Angels. Open to US citizens only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Author

Lili St. Crow
Lili Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. Lili lives in Vancouver, WA with her children, a houseful of cats, and assorted other strays.

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