Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
Series: Angelfire, #1
Source: Bought
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: February 15, 2011

First there are nightmares.
Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.

Then come the memories.
When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.

Now she must hunt.
Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.

Today I'm doing something different than I used to. As you guys know, it's been a while since I've written a review, and I guess my mind has kind of forgotten how to do it. So what I'm going to do is use a bullet-point format to just kind of outline the thoughts that I had while reading this book. I'm hoping that's okay with y'all.

• Ellie is kind of a flat character. When I read from her point of view, I feel like there's too much explaining going on, like the author is trying to make her believable and a deep character, but she's only making her flat by not making her feel enough. It's too much mechanical thinking rather than emotional thinking.

• Will is the typical paranormal love interest, and I really don't buy this "in love for centuries" shit. It is the most overused and cliched storyline in young adult paranormals.

• The writing is a little stilted, but it still manages to be enjoyable, if you're not putting much stock into this being a life changing read. It would probably make a good movie, because I feel like it has a movie level of character growth. Just enough to get by, but not enough to really make it anything special.

• From what I've seen so far (page 94), the  plot appears to be a little bit simplistic, or in other words it's a bit cliche.

• I feel like there's too much detail, but at the same time not enough. It's hard to explain.

• I'm sick if every single ya book having a love triangle. Is it too much to ask for just one love interest? In real life not every single girl has magical powers and multiple love interests. So step up your game, ya authors!

• Ellie is prettyy girly and it doesn't really fit the badass she's supposed to be.

• I appreciate the fact that Ellie tries to reason Will into thinking that just because they were born of that doesn't mean they're evil or that they're good... That they probably have a choice.

• None of the characters have any depth to speak of. If you looked at thier facial expressions it'd be like looking at a plain brick wall.

• I think it's unrealistic that every time Ellie's Audi gets totaled, there's always a way of getting it easily repaired. Insurance claims work out and everything is fine and fixed.

• There is absolutely no way whatsoever they could plan this big world saving trip on a thanksgiving holiday. You can't make last minute plane trip rides for the Wednesday before thanksgiving and a ride back on Black Friday - it doesn't happen. And even if you could, there are way too many people to risk it.

• The villains are very one dimensional and cheesy in their dialogue. They don't have enough depth or the right motivation to even be good villains. There's no good backgrounds.

• I'm having to push my way through Angelfire which makes me think that I won't be continuing this series. The plot has no depth, the characters have no life,and don't even let me bring up the cardboard cutout villains.

• Towards the end Angelfire got a little bit better, and I'll give it two stars for that, but it definitely won't be going on my favorites shelf. In fact, I think it's going on my "get this book out of my site" box.

• All in all, I'm going to go ahead and let you all know that I won't be recommending this one - it didn't work for me, in any stretch of the word. The plot made me want to bang my head on walls, and the characters made me want to go on a mad stabbing/killing spree. This one just wasn't for me.