It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.
Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.
Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.
Travelling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.
Penryn is our main character in this story, and she makes quite the heroine, I must say. She is brave and caring, a dangerous combo. But caring and selflessness are not the same. Penryn is risking everything to get her sister, Paige, back from the angels. She may have saved Raffe, but solely because because he was her only way into the aerie, where her sister is being kept. I think this creates a very realistic foundation for the Penryn/Raffe ship because it’s not [as] cliché as most meetings are. Like everybody else, Penryn, her sister, and her mother are just trying to survive.
One thing I did not understand was how Penryn let her schizophrenic mother run off by herself, just assuming she’ll find her again. Her father has left them, her sister has been kidnapped, and her mother has run off to who know where. But it’s alright, because she must tend to the injured angel, whose brothers are destroying the world.
Raffe is an angel (I guessed he was Raphael in full … I was right!), and he seems to be in some kind of predicament. He is very mysterious and as such, we never figure out the his entire background. He has that bad boy arrogance found in many, many stories, and of course, looks like a Greek Adonis.
Against any powerful movement, there is a resistance group. Penryn and Raffe are captured by this group. The leader, Obi, views the two of them to be valuable additions to their party and would like to recruit them. Seeing so many humans, their strength, and their hope makes Penryn question her alliance with Raffe, and makes her wonder who the bad guy really is. Her self-conflict battles right and wrong throughout the whole book, increasing the tension.
The world was very easy to slip into. You get lost in it fast. I could imagine myself running through the streets in this humans vs angels battle. It was a well paced book; slow, but full of detail.
The author’s writing was very unique in the right of the word. She kept the teenage girl tone throughout the book without taking away from the terror of the apocalypse. It was gory and scary. It was cute and funny.
“Because you have the look they’re looking for?”
“What look is that?”
“Beautiful.” His voice is like a caress from the shadows.
I know many people hate cheesy moments like these but I loved this moment. I also love the author’s vivid imagery of her monsters; the scorpions, Josiah, and the human experimental subjects.
All in all, this was a very good read. Be warned though, you will get a book hangover.
RATING
The Jinxed Goblet 