Title: World After
Author: Susan Ee
Published: November 19th, 2013 by Skyscape
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Summary:
In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what’s left of the modern world.
When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.
Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.
Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?
The Review (minor spoilers if you haven’t read Angelfall):
Going into this book, I was afraid that I’d forget the events in Angelfall as it’d been months since I read the first book. But, I am happy to report that the moment I started reading World After, I was immediately thrown back into the world that Susan Ee created.
World After starts only about an hour after Angelfall ends and we find our kickass heroine trying to recover from the attacks she suffered at the hands of the angels’ evil creations. Of course, being Penryn, she immediately assesses the situation and didn’t really waste any time feeling sorry for herself. I really do think that she’s a great character. She shows how brave and smart she is over and over throughout the book but at the same time, she doesn’t forget that she is still a teenager who can’t possibly take on the world by herself.
Other than the obvious issue of the angel infestation, some of Penryn’s problems are a little closer to home. On top of having to care for her disabled sister, she also constantly has to watch over her mother, who is mentally ill. But with the way she tackles her problems one at a time, it just proves to me how she’s a very strong character. And while I can’t say I have to deal with anything even remotely close, I do find her a relatable character and I enjoy reading the book from her perspective.
We don’t really get to see Raffe until nearly the end of the book. Surprisingly, I don’t mind that. One of the things I enjoyed in the last book was the snarky interactions between Raffe and Penryn. But despite his absence in World After, I find that Penryn could still carry the book and kept me interested until the end.
Having said that, I do think that the book was longer than it needed to be. I found that some parts moved a bit slow and I could’ve done without. And I have to admit that I kinda rolled my eyes when I read the synopsis and it said ‘When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige’. I just thought “umm… again?”. It actually happened a little differently in the book, but no spoilers! I just feel like there has to be a different way to move the story along than simply the “I’m looking for my sister” thing.
Like what I said about the first book, this universe is darker than what I normally read. So just a little warning, if you can’t handle violence, mutilation, human experiments and things like that, this book is probably not for you. It didn’t make me stop reading the book, but I did cringe at certain parts of it and I had bug eyes more than a few times. But after reading the first book, I knew what I was getting into so nothing really SURPRISED, surprised me. Get it?
Speaking of the first book, I feel like World After is not as exciting. It is by no means a bad book. But I guess it just lost the shock factor that Angelfall had. I still really enjoyed reading it and I didn’t really find any major issues that detracted from the experience. While it didn’t blow me away or throw me off my feet, I still think that World After is a pretty solid sequel to Angelfall. The characters, even the secondary characters like Dee, Dum, and Obi are great, it still has the plot twists you might not see coming and it was overall an enjoyable read. Especially if you like creepy things like dragonfly/scorpion humanoids that will liquefy your insides
