Beth The Vampire's Reviews > Archon

The blurb sounded so promising, but I was very disappointed. When I first picked up the book I saw the acknowledgements, and that the author thanked God first. now I have nothing against religion; each to their own. But seeing as the book was about angels, I was already doubting my decision to read this, but I gave it a go. It's wasn't preachy or overly-religious or anything like that, which was good. There was a lot of lore here (hence the need for the dictionary at the back), and the sheer amount made the book seemed bogged down. Too focused in prophecies, and angels, and fokelore to really focus on the story and the characters. So many times I became confused as to who was who, what certain things meant (like being the Archon, for example, and why everyone was fighting over it considering that it didn't sound like a good thing to be), who was aligned with who and why, and why people took the actions they did.

There were some interesting aspects to Angela's character, but these were not fully explored, instead she became so bogged down in the world there wasn't the time. In the whole book Angela and those around her kept saying that she was not the Archon, so I knew that she had to turn out to be in the end, and while she did, the reasons for this and what that meant were so confusing. Also, I couldn't tell whether this was supposed to be a young adult book or not, because while the majority of the characters were 18 or so, the writing seemed to be aiming for an older audience. Often I became confused as to where the characters were, what their surroundings looked like, and what they were doing, and I think this was the fault of the writing.

Often unclear, and sometimes focusing on the most minor elements of an environment, I found it sometimes to be convoluted, like the writer was trying to make the story seem more adult. At times, when the characters were just being bitchy to one another I really felt like I was reading a teen high school novel, and then other parts were so bogged down in folklore and mythology that I felt like I was reading an entirely different book. In the end though, I don't think anyone really learned anything, and that all of the characters seemed to get what they deserve...either die or become insane. The explanations of the angels is something else I want to touch on briefly, because they did not seem well explained enough, and it left me wondering whether the author even had a clear picture. At one point one the angels had 6 pairs of wings, and that threw me because it had never been described before. That's what I felt through the whole book, like the pointless and more benign things were explained over and over again (such as Angela not being able to die) but other things, such as the relationships between the angels (Isfrael and his Thrones for example) or specific aspects about their person, were left out. There was promise here, and I could feel it during some passages or chapters, but ultimately this book couldn't decide what it wanted to be and it left itself in the middle of nowhere.