Reminds me of the Supernatural tv show.
Dru can sense The Real World (the paranormal world, not the tv show), and she travels around with her Dad, who's a down-and-dirty monster killer. When she's left all on her own--in a dramatic and heartbreaking fashion, I might add--she's in big trouble because something seriously bad is gunning for her.
So much to like, here. 1. St. Crow has an earthy, realistic writing voice with a Deep South feel. The prose style is enjoyably descriptive, and we get simple but lovely lines like, "My mouth tasted like day-old coffee mixed with ash" (pg 106). So good. 2. Most of the character behavior is totally justified, frex: this is a gritty, dark book, and one of the ways the grittiness manifests itself is in some pretty heavy language for a YA, but it all feels natural, considering the MC's rough background. 3. Great secondary characters. It takes a little while, but Graves gets pretty amazing, though he bugged me at first. Then there's Christophe, who doesn't really put in an appearance until halfway through the book but moves the story forward in marvelous ways. 4. The mythology is fresh, complex, compelling, and the longer you read the more interesting it gets.
Another big reason I find Strange Angels appealing is that it's a good example of the kind of writing I'm going to arbitrarily call "Scrape Fiction" where, unlike many novels where the characters have two states: perfect health or almost-dead-from-stab-wounds-and-bullet-holes, the MC can gets little cuts, sprains, and headaches that hurt in a standard bearable fashion, but are annoying or interfere with the MC's activities. In this type of book, busted lips and bruised knuckles are the order of the day instead of broken bones or lopped-off limbs, though those may appear, too. Gotta say, I'm a fan of this approach. In that way, Strange Angels reminds me of one of my favorite tv shows of all time: Supernatural, where the lighting is dim, the monsters are abundant, and the setting feels lived-in and unglamourous. Though now that I think about it, this book's similarities to that show are huge--the backstory is, Dru's and her dad bounce from town to town fighting whatever monster is in residence, with only each other for company. Dru's dad is even a fan of classic rock a la AC/DC.
Dislikes: 1. It's presented as part of Dru's overall gruffness and insensitivity, but I cringe when she mentally refers to Graves, who is part Asian, as a "half-breed". It just sets my internal racism alarms a-ringing. 2. Dru's awesome and tough--sometimes so much so that her POV feels male. Can we have a tough girl protag without making her sound like a dude? Tall order, I know. 3. "Werewolf" in this book is spelled "werwulf," and I can't get behind that. It's like when someone spells vampire as "vampyre," and while I'm fine with more obscure supernatural species being spelled however you like (faery/faerie, selkie/selchie), if you're going to write vamps and wolves I prefer you call 'em that. Leave off the fancy sauce and just give me the chicken.
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