Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For some reason "Angelology" caught my attention on this vine list. A whole secret sect dedicated to studying and protecting the world from the secret offspring of angels and man? Very cool. Add in some biblical references and ancient mythology and you got your story. Or you should. This novel revolves around the premise that there is a long standing organization of angelologists who study the angels and work against their hybrid children the Nephilim, who are constantly struggling to exert their superior place in the world by ruling humanity through any number of schemes. This organization has schools and institutions for teaching new recruits (from every religion and sphere of spiritual and secular life) and they do what they can to learn how to defeat the Nephilim and have been doing so for a long, long time. Our story begins in 1999 at the New York Convent of St. Rose where Sister Evangeline, the twenty three year old orphaned daughter of two angelologists, has lived since she was twelve. Evangeline has blocked out most of the odd occurrences in her childhood but when a modern art scholar from NYC named Verlaine shows up in the convent archives (which boast a mass library of angelic images and texts) looking for information that the former Abbess of the convent was once in communication with Abigail Rockefeller it sparks her interest. The letter she finds leads her to one of the eldest sisters in the convent, who tells the tale of her days as a young angelology student in Paris before WW2-and the expedition to the cave where the angels who fathered the Nephilim were cast down from heaven and imprisoned in to find the lyre of Orpheus-which both sides in the conflict believe has great power to aid their cause. This nun also studied with Evangeline's grandmother-who has written a series of letters to Evangeline to be opened when the time is right, explaining the ancient situation she finds herself in the middle of. Verlaine doesn't know it but the man he's working for, Percival Grigori is a Nephilim-a powerful one searching for the lyre to restore his ailing heath. Verlaine has no idea angels exists at all in fact. But soon he is caught up as the angelologists, with Evangeline race to discover the hidden Lyre before the Nephilim can find it. That's our story. The "present" parts of it take place over two days. Or less. This could have been fascinating if anything was ever explained. The origins of angelology for example-never really mentioned. How one finds out or becomes part of this world-nada. Any kind of real history about the main characters is mostly absent too-as is any kind of information to make sense of this novel! There is just so much missing-so much description, so much information! If the concept of angelology was like-I don't know-the KKK maybe (in terms of fame) then the level of explanation might be adequate but as it the plot is barely capable of being followed. And the characters themselves are just shadows with no substance (except for the repeated mentions of Verlaine's snazzy tie and the brand of boxers he prefers.) The author does manage to convey a great sense of urgency but once you reach the end it all falls apart into a big mess. And the end! If this is not part of a planned series then it makes even less sense that I think it does. This book hits a conundrum. There isn't enough information to explain the basic concepts but in order for there to be enough there would have to be several, much longer, books. Maybe a series that starts at the beginning or has a flashback system that makes more sense than the one big block of past in the middle of the book. Frankly I'm lost. I enjoyed the overall concept (which I don't understand very well), liked parts of the book (but was incredibly frustrated by their lack of detail and sense of weight) and am stuck with an overall feeling that there are huge sections of this novel floating around in the either which could bring it all together and make it better (not that it wouldn't help the constant clichés when it comes to any kind of relationship involved) and more readable. I hate giving bad reviews. Especially to first time authors. I didn't like this book but I was absorbed by it. I can see why someone would buy the movie rights to the concept (congrats to the author by the way) but I don't see how this, as is, could be a movie. Overall this book I think, was just too ambitious for it's limitations (especially page length) and that made the whole thing awkward and confusing yet strangely appealing. Two stars.