Review: Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow
My rating: 1.5 of 5 genies
Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy, Magic, Paranormal, Zombies, Shapeshifters, Vampires, Horror
Published: May 14, 2009
Pages: 293
Publisher: Razorbill
Source: Library Loan
Format: Paperback
Purchase At: TheBookDepository.com or Amazon.com

Goodreads Summary

In Strange Angels, Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.)

Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her?

My Thoughts

I realize that I cannot keep doing this to myself, that is, reading books I do not like, for the pure sake of getting it done. Doing so has proven time and time again to be a complete waste of effort. It has taken me forever just to get 70 pgs into this!! I started another book after dumping this entirely, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi and it is brilliant! At 70 pgs with Mafi's book, I never wanted to stop. With Strange Angels I always wanted it to end.

And make no mistake, I'm not hating without a reason, I wanted to like this, I really did, it just never worked out that way because:

I. Hate. Dru.




She's egotistic, boring as heck, generally ungrateful and CONDESCENDING. Ah, Dru, let me count the ways I hate thee:

1. How dare you prance around acting "above" everyone? What makes you so great, kid? NOTHING. I don't care if you could out-barter me when it comes to arguing in the secret underworld black market for canned leprechaun feet! As far as I'm concerned, You. Are. A. Tool.

It's great that some people really liked this, I get that some readers will disagree, but this definitely wasn't for me. The action was slow moving and the characters far too over-thought to provide natural or even enjoyable reading.

The author tried hard to make Dru so, so, so B.A. And all through I kept getting these obvious and weird Rose Hathaway nudges of similarity like, 'look here! She's B.A. doesn't give a f--- and does whatever she wants. Isn't she familiar? But not overly so, so that I could possibly go to prison for attempted plagiarism? You're a teen, right? Love her, love this shit! Please, I'd love to hunt her down, effectively now.

2. This bothered me to no end. One thing I will never get over is how she describes Graves - her only friend so far and with the attitude this girl has, I don't blame anyone for keeping their distance. So Graves basically takes her in, and yet she persists in making him out to be some circus freak. St. Crow even writes him as a, half-breed because of his mixed race.

Whatt De Frickson Racers?!? When did we start talking about dogs here; or are people from mixed coupling not considered human?? She makes him pathetically self-conscious, gangly and just an oddity. As is mentioned many times throughout the book, Graves does not know what to do with himself. Ever.

It's told from first person, whatever, but do I honestly need minute by minute detail on how awkwardly the boy sits/handles himself or how all of his strange complexities can somehow be linked to the fact that he's mixed. GET. OVER. YOURSELF. Children from interracial couples are so freaking adorable! How dare you point a hand at that, St. Crow?

At this point, around pg 40-ish I was already frustrated beyond belief. You know when you stick a book down and want to go back to it? I never did, on the contrary I was relieved whenever the opportunity arose to get as far away from Dru as possible.

3. As a protagonist, Dru sucks. She is stale, uninspiring and just there to act obnoxious. Sorry, but future installments having pretty covers aside this is the real reason I ever picked Strange Angels I cannot deal with Dru; and since she is the main character here, I thought it might be best to cut my losses.

I never grieved for her.

I never rooted for her.

Heck, I never even liked her. Poor Graves, he did though, too much if you ask me. That girl makes Bella Swan and Luce from Fallen look like freaking optimists. She treated him as well as St. Crow implies of him, like a dog.

*Sigh* To wrap things up because I really do not want to be meanerany more honest about this, 1.5 genies is all this book is getting from me, nothing more and if possible a lot less. If it wasn't for the (wasted) potential. The whole 'real world' deal is pretty sweet, it just sucks that Dru tries to make it exclusive to a fault. I'm sure St. Crow isn't a bad writer; she just has very poor characters.