WARNING: I think this review contains some mild spoilers. The main spoilerish thing I give away is something I had mostly figured out from the synopsis, but if you don't like anything to be spoiled, you might want to wait.
Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton could have been a great read. I mean, really. The heroine is a (supposedly) normal girl, who fights evil demon reaper things in another dimension, and happens to be the only being on the planet capable of wielding angelfire. How cool is that?! The synopsis of the book sounded good, so I was quite excited to read the book. Every once in a while I like to go for those kick butt heroines who definitely do not need the love interest to save the day. He's just there to look pretty.;) (ahem...) But really. I get a little tired of the supposedly strong female constantly in need of rescue by a conveniently placed attractive male. I get that often people do need help in dangerous situations, but the 'damsel in distress' routine is getting a little old.
So, when I got the chance to read about Ellie, who sounds totally and completely hard core, I was really excited. So, I think you can imagine my disappointment when the first and second time these reapers show up, Ellie freezes/has no idea what to do when (bum ba ba ba!!) Will 'appears' to the rescue. He touches her head, a light flashes and suddenly Ellie just knows she can take this thing. Bam. I was a little bummed, but was willing to go with it, because it's a reincarnation thing, and she's spent the last 17 years thinking she's completely normal. Okay, fine. But, she never really changes. Will always needs to be there in order for Ellie to remember that she not only knows how to walk, but she can also will flaming swords to appear from no where.
Which actually reminds me of my second complaint with the story... While sometimes the writing worked well, others the words and phrases chosen were trite and clichéd. Like Ellie having swords 'appear out of thin air.' That's the only example I wrote down, but it happened frequently. I found myself rolling my eyes a little too often.
But, even with those two complaints I was really enjoying the story, and I was able to overlook them (besides the occasional (esq.) eye roll. I understood that Ellie needed to grow into her abilities. Just because her past lives have been doing this for thousands of years doesn't mean that a 17 year old isn't going to be a little weirded out. So fine. I enjoyed watching Ellie learn about herself too. There were moments when she would learn how to harness a particular power or ability and it was awesome being inside her head, because she was so excited about it.
I also liked that Will wasn't love at first site for Ellie, even though he has been a part of her past lives. She feels a weird tingle of recognition, that she brushes off because she knows she wouldn't have forgotten a boy that hot and that's pretty much it. He talks to her, she thinks he's totally hot, but a little weird and she continues to skirt around him, deciding whether he's nuts or not. It's only later, after she's been around him a bit more and has spent more time getting to know him (again) that she realizes she's in love with him. Which, I was more than okay with. Love at first site just doesn't really work for me...
I did have mixed feeling about Will. He has the potential to be a really great character, and there was a lot I liked about him. I actually liked most things about him, but he has the tendency to play the martyr... A lot, which got old really fast.
I enjoyed Moulton's idea of the Grim dimension, and the reapers that live within, feasting off human souls. Although there were a few flaws, I mostly enjoyed the characters, especially because I watched them grow over the course of the novel, and Moulton left them a lot of room to grow in the later books.
But, and this is THE big but, I didn't like the book, because I disagree strongly with some major parts of Moulton's logic, reasoning, and angelic philosophies... First, there is the idea that the reapers snatch your soul to build the armies of evil. But, I'm a believer in agency and choice, not fate. And, I have a really hard time believing that just because you had the bad luck to be mauled by the soul snatcher that you are now destined to march alongside the devil in a battle against heaven. If we are talking about what sends you to heaven or hell, I'm going to have to go with personal choices every single time. I don't believe that a truly good person who has done all they can to follow what they believe to be right is going to go warring against heaven just because a reaper snatched their soul.
I also really did not like the major reveal at the end of the book. We kind of start to get an idea of who Ellie really is, and why she is actually able to do what she does. But, I don't buy it. At all. I won't tell you why, because that is a major Major spoiler, far bigger than anything I've let slip thus far. But, suffice it say, unless Moulton means something totally different from what happened at the end of the book — I do not like it. And, if you aren't a fan of the deus ex machina endings, you are probably not going to like this one either.
I don't mean to sound harsh in this review, although I have a feeling it's going to come across that way, because for most of the book, I was enjoying myself. I was able to overlook the things that bothered me about the story, and just enjoy it for what it was. It wasn't until the very end of the book that I just really couldn't enjoy it anymore.
This is a book that had a lot of potential, but just didn't manage to do it for me.
* Disclaimer: I received this book through Star Book Tours.