Review: more than I expected
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 6, 2013
I grabbed this expecting just a little bit of fluff. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of characters I found, as well as the humor and a solid story.I loved the angels and their AA meetings. They were a lot of fun and funny to boot. They all felt a little naive and well meaning. You could really imagine them bumbling through their missions and meeting almost miraculous or divinely inspired success. Oh, and poor Uri! Having said that I loved them, and I did, they did get a little preachy on occasion. They're angels after all. But it was never so blatant that the book slipped over into prosthelytizing and religious fiction in the stricter sense. As a non-Christian I was never made uncomfortable by it, but I would imagine a committed Christian looking for an inspirational read to underscore the omnipotent, loving altruism of the Holy Father would be happy with it too.I did think that in the end everything wrapped up a little too well. All of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, Kyle's over bearing and self-absorbed mother decides to make peace. Kyle suddenly becomes strangely emotive and confesses seemingly out of nowhere despite being emotionally shut down just days before. Michael at least bends a commandment to give Jed a kick in the right direction, even though he showed every inclination of being a rule follower until that moment. Charles isn't mad in the least when he finds out the truth. One character jumped from denial strait to eternal commitment and marriage, while another suddenly finds herself contrite after years of being otherwise. I realise that if you haven't read the book these examples make little sense, but you can probably imagine their context and while they brought about a wonderful happy ending, they didn't really feel very natural.I'm so glad book two is about Noble. I found him an intriguing character, which is saying something since he was practically mute. All in all, I got more than I bargained for out of this one and would be more than happy to read more of Ms. Allen's writing. If for no other reason than to see how many more small religious exclamations she can come up with. They were a lot of fun and made for an interesting running joke.