★★★☆
When the first page of a book mentions angels, I am immediately scared. As you may have read in my side bar, I will not read a book that revolves around vampires, but, the reason why I won't has origins that might be a little unexpected. You might think to yourself "he just got completely turned off of the idea by Twilight and all those other garbage vampire books." And while yes, that is a part of it, the majority of my dislike comes from reading The City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I have an entire post I need to write about how much I dislike this book and series, and another whole post about the use of the word "bone" in YA Fantasy titles, but I'm getting off topic.
I don't only dislike vampires, but also werewolves, fae, genies, elves, and, as stated above, angels. I generally believe that including them in your story is much like using stock footage in your movie. They basically stick out to me as a placeholder where you could be inserting your own unique and wonderfully creative magical creatures into the book, but then just got plain, old, lazy.
So imagine my surprise when the angels in Furyborn were unique and wonderfully creative!
When I conjure the image of angels in my mind I think of, you know, angels! How could we not all have the same image of the wholly good, white-robed humans who fly with enormous wings? Clearly, Claire Legrand does not think this, instead making Angels in this book as a race so steeped in hatred for humans and bent on their destruction that they are disfigured and function barely above animal level. I love it.
This book is also an ambitious undertaking. It follows the thread of two women, Eliana and Rielle, who live in time periods over 1000 years apart. Based off Eliana, the chronologically latter heroine, we have a vague understanding of how Rielle's story comes to a close, so Rielle's chapters read somewhat like a prequel, while we will get the final resolution in Eliana's story. If this is something that intrigues you, definitely grab a copy of this book - it's worth a read!
Some things that I like:
(1) Talk about starting in media res. You'll see when you read the first chapter.
(2) This book does not pull punches when it comes to characters being ruthless, and that's something that I can respect. Many books, in an effort to make their characters more relatable, makes them much more humane than I would expect them to be, given the circumstances the book puts them in. Usually it makes the characters seem daft, and requires some real back bending by the author to have them not be gutted by the enemy after "following their conscience."
(3) The characters don't do stupid things. I can't believe I have to put this as a thing that this book does well but characters do stupid things in so. many. books. It was nice to have a book where most, if not all, of the characters' decisions felt natural and in-line with their previous choices.
Some gripes:
(1) Alternating narrative is a common enough way to write YA fantasy, but the chapters are super short, and it's exhausting when it feels like I have to hold cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger in my head.
(2) The book just, ends. Like, "Boom! That's a wrap!" I was genuinely surprised when I turned the page and there was just, no more book. Legrand, to that point, had done a great job of steadily raising the tension and stakes and now I just kinda have to... hold it I guess until I read the next book. Left me unsatisfied.
(3) I'm getting a little tired of books where the location of the characters changes constantly. Rielle's story is rather static, but I swear Eliana alternates every chapter between travel, new place, travel, new place, and it's just tiring, especially combined with point #1 here.
Final thoughts: Plain and simply, this is just a good, engaging book. Solid, if not incredibly original, worldbuilding, a cast of characters that I didn't hate, and a decent pace kept me turning pages.There were some good twists (some that Legrand holds your hand towards, some that are truly unexpected), and a sense of weight to the actions of the characters. Overall, I will bequeath this book with one of the highest honors I can bestow: I'll probably read the sequel (eventually).
