"Airel" by Aaron Patterson

From Goodreads: "They fell from grace for love... they married women and their children had abilities. The Sons of God became legend and myth and over time gods like Thor, Zeus, and others carried the story over time. Superheros emerged and real or not, this is the beginning... ***Airel just wanted to go through High School as a normal teenager. She wanted to fly under the radar, but that was all about to change. Something was happening to her, changes and now this man stalking her... a killer and he wanted her! ***Based on a true story***"

When I first started reading it I was really excited by its premise due to the fact that it seemed unlike any fallen angel book I had ever read before and while I can admit that the some of premise was quite original and I did quite enjoy said parts, some parts of it, especially the characters and the romance were overly cliched and at times it truly did feel like the story had deviated a little too much from its original intent (it almost felt like the author said to himself, "Hmmmmm.... How many YA paranormal plot lines can I fit into one book?). I genuinely do think that this book has the potential to be really, really amazing, but that some of the aforementioned YA plot lines do need to be toned down a bit.

Typically when I read a book whose main character is of the opposite gender of the author I cannot tell, because the author is able to flawlessly occupy a different gender in their writing, however in this book I did think that it was quite apparent that the male author did have difficulties writing a lead female. There were countless times in the book that I rolled my eyes thinking to myself, "A female would never think that way or say something like that- well, a female outside of a hardcore harlequin romance, that is" (ie. when Airel, the main female character, was describing her male counterpart, "He was perfect and beautifully manly", or when she took on almost a cheerleader persona when describing her make-up routine).

While obviously I have complaints about this book I think that by far my biggest complaint was the romance element of it, it was entirely contradictory. Airel always talked about how she would never become one of those girls who solely relied about their boyfriend ("So many of my friends were hung up on their idea of this one guy that they were seriously having some issues with reality, just waiting to be found by destiny or whatever. I always thought that was pretty lame. Weak, I mean. I just felt like I was somehow meant for more than that. Like I was made to be more".), yet she was totally one of those girls- perhaps one of the worst that I have ever read of before ("I felt as if I were in an ocean- unpredictable, wild, stormy- and I could feel, intensely, that his single wish in life was to be given the privilege in drowning in all that I was. But it was more than simple desire. No, I could tell. He loved me. In it was something more powerful then all of the stars crashing to earth".> I should make note that Airel was thinking this less than a month, if not only a few weeks, of knowing Michael). Furthermore, it was evident to everyone except Airel that the 'feelings of love' that she had been feeling towards Michael were actually quite obsessive and that she was only defining her life based upon her relationship with Michael and what was most frustrating about this was that she didn't care at all (Kale: Do you see that it was unhealthy? Do you see how he was overtaking who you are as a person? You were bound to failure if you allow yourself to drown in each other". Airel: "I love him! Don't you get it. It was him, not how he looked or what he said, but him!").

All in all, while some aspects of this book were quite good (ie. the story of Kreios), the vast majority of it didn't live up to its potential at all.

Rating: 6/10

I received this book to read and honestly review. I was not compensated in any way for said review. Special thanks to Dorothy Thompson from Pump Up Your Books for my copy of the book!