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Monday, May 14, 2012

A Temptation of Angels

Even angels make mistakes in this page-turning epic romance

When her parents are murdered before her eyes, sixteen-year-old Helen Cartwright finds herself launched into an underground London where a mysterious organization called the Dictata controls the balance of good and evil. Helen learns that she is one of three remaining angelic descendants charged with protecting the world's past, present, and future. Unbeknownst to her, she has been trained her whole life to accept this responsibility. Now, as she finds herself torn between the angelic brothers protecting her and the devastatingly handsome childhood friend who wants to destroy her, she must prepare to be brave, to be hunted, and above all to be strong, because temptation will be hard to resist, even for an angel.

Michelle Zink masterfully weaves historical fantasy with paranormal romance to create a gripping tale of love and betrayal. (from Goodreads)


This book is the perfect example of why third person is a tricky POV to use. This book wasn't bad, per say, but I felt detached from the story the whole time, like I was the narrator, not the MC. 


The book was extremely fast-paced. I read it in about two and a half hours, and this 435 book only took place over two or three days. 

Helen was an okay narrator. She didn't have much of a personality. I think the intent was to make her a shell of a person, so that the reader could slip into easily. Problem is, these kinds of narrators don't work for me. I'd rather read about a narrator that annoys the crap out of me than one who doesn't have any personality at all. Plus, she, like any other YA MC, had her TSTL moments. At least they weren't over a guy. 

For anyone who read my Goodreads status updates, you know that I was debating between Griffin being a douche or not. Well, I've decided. He's a douche. Near the ending of the book, he tells Helen that he needs her to tell him that she loves him, otherwise he'll go mad. Or die. Something like that. This is after he's known her for two or three days. (And no, when he says this, she hasn't decided between him and the other guy yet). This isn't a healthy relationship. In fact, it sounds eerily like the one portrayed in Stay by Deb Caletti. That book, too, features an unhealthy relationship, but it's supposed to be unhealthy. Not all of these 'true loves' found in paranormals lately.

The thing is, this book is also rather simple. The plot was pretty straightforward. The good guys are purely good, and the bad guys are purely bad. There's no mix of gray. There were a couple of kissing scenes, and the beginning of the book was pretty tense, but about a third of the way in, that tense-ness disappeared. I might even venture to say that this book goes into the middle-grade range.

There were a couple of info dumps that I skimmed, which meant that I didn't quite understand what half of the terms being thrown around were. 


In spite of my review being pretty negative, this book was okay. There wasn't anything to make it stand out, in either a good or a bad way. So it gets three stars. 

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