Review: Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

Reading Level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends; 1^st edition (August 31^st 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312656262
ISBN-13: 9780312656263
Source: Purchased from Powerbooks

First Sentence: “Our arrival didn’t exactly go as planned.”
Favorite Line from the Book: “Some say we can’t choose who we fall in love with; love chooses us. Sometimes people fall for the complete antithesis of everything they believe they’re looking for.”

Book Summary: Three angels- Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human- are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They must work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments.

Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong.

The angel’s mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?

I got interested in reading this book because it was something new.  Although there are already a couple of books about angels, this is something new because the angel is the lead girl character.  At the same time, I loved the cover’s simplicity which promised a great story.

The first part of the book measured up to the cover’s radiance.  But as I went along, I felt unsatisfied.  I felt that the story was dragging.  Although it was a fresh breath of air that the story-telling perspective came from Bethany’s point view, I somehow felt that there were parts wherein if scrapped, the story can still go on.  I appreciated that you can really “see” through the eyes of an angel-turned-human through Bethany’s perspective as opposed to the other angel-themed novels.  I got fascinated how the brand new experiences and newly gained knowledge was presented by the author through Bethany, how the experience of falling in love for the very first time was clearly defined, how the thoughts of an angel about the world was voiced out.  BUT, what I wasn’t able to really dig into was Bethany’s clinginess to Xavier, how she was so impulsive.  And yet, I thought, that any teenager is like that.  Xavier on the other hand was too good to be true. I am interested to see in the next books if he will get a flaw or something.  Moving on the secondary characters, Gabriel and Ivy, it seems like the author still has a lot in store for them in the succeeding books.  Both stood as the parental components of the book and even considered as the guiding pillars for Bethany.  I would definitely like to see more stories developed around Gabriel and Ivy.  The villain, well for me he was very well thought off.  I was able to feel the how cruel he is and the menace of his voice and actions.  But my only problem was he just showed up rather late in the book.  It’s as if the author just thought about inserting a conflict to build some kind of tension.  The ending of this conflict was rather abrupt.  It feels like I could have gotten more from the action.  Well, I hope the rest of the action will be seen in the next book, Hades, which will come out this year.

Over all, I liked the book enough to finish it and perhaps buy the next one just for me to see how the characters develop and how the conflicts are resolved and what happens to the love story of Bethany and Xavier.  It was still a refreshing read even with some of the flaws.

Rating

In My Mailbox {1}

In My Mailbox is an amazing weekly meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren that features the books we have received during the week.

Here are the books I bought this week:

Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

Source: bought from Powerbooks

Three angels- Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human- are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They must work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments.

Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong.

The angel’s mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Source: bought from Powerbooks

Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You’re in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids — the Runners — venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.

Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he’s unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, and does Thomas hold the key to finding a way out?

In The Maze Runner, Dashner has crafted a creative and engaging novel that’s both mysterious and thought provoking.

What do you have on your mailbox?