Larissa Hinton

I really wanted to like this book.

There's a city which is not quite of this world, called Iwishacana. In this city, wishes come true--if you want something you wish for it, and it appears. There are apparently some rules and restrictions, but it's not at all clear what they are. Eventually we learn that babies born in Iwishacana have a chip implanted in their brains, and this is key to how the wish system works. Anissa was not born in Iwishacana, but her mother was, and she has the ability to visit the city, to make wishes, etc.


Anissa's mother, Laura, is upset because Anissa is visiting Iwishicana without permission and doing other "teenage rebellion" kinds of things. When she learns that Anissa is taking art classes in Iwishicana, she grounds her. When she then discovers that Anissa has a male friend friend from Iwishacana, Florence, in her bedroom at night, she sends Anissa to Juvenile Police Camp in Iwishacana to wipe all her crimes off her record and get her on the straight and narrow.

Crimes? Well, yes. We find out about a third of the way through the book, when Anissa is already at cop camp, that someone has been using Anissa's identity to rob banks and commit other serious crimes. If she's really going to clear her name, she has to find out who. If she does find out who, the person will kill her unless she kills them first. This is part of how things are done in Iwishacana. You'd think that identity theft and using someone else's identity to commit crimes would itself be a crime, and that the correct course of action would be to report it to the police and then hire a lawyer, but no. Duel to the death, that's the ticket.

Of course, Anissa and Florence, being teenagers, act like it. Unfortunately, so to all of the putative adults who play any significant role in the story. This includes the character I dubbed Scipio, because his name is given only in Greek characters. He's the father of two of the other adults in the story, hence old enough to be Anissa's grandfather, and he's supposed to be a source of wisdom and guidance, and he still acts like a petulant teenager whenever he's thwarted in anything. Florence sometimes acts more mature--but only when the plot requires it; when it doesn't, he reverts. He's also nice or bullying depending on plot demands.

While the characterization is weak, so is the writing. Hinton consistently uses "then" when she means "than." There are sentences that don't make sense if you read them closely, that start off in one direction and wind up in another, that change tense partway through. This is by no means the worst sentence in the book:
It was a bland blue room with little decorations except for a picture of a guy and Brittnay stared directly at the camera with no smiles on their faces.

I wish I could be kinder to this book. There's an interesting story here, though parts of it need to be thought through more completely. I suspect the biggest thing this book needs is an editor. It's the downside of self-publishing; the author doesn't have to take advice or criticism from anyone they don't want to, until after they've already published their book. The same thing can happen to really popular authors published by the major publishers: Robert Heinlein, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, and other major best-selling authors have each in their time become "too big to edit." The writing of all of them suffered for it.

I hope Hinton finds an editor who'll tell her what she doesn't want to hear, and make her listen. It will be key to her growing to fulfill her potential..

Not recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the author.
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Amazon Description:
He was forbidden. Uncontrollable. Never to be seen, mentioned, or otherwise talked about. Until the nightmares began. Searing the screams, carnage and death into her skull. Forever. Before this, Lindsey had a normal life. Somewhat. She had a boyfriend who was acting strange, an ex-boyfriend who has been too flirtatious and a best friend who turned psychic. Once upon a time, the hardest decision Lindsey had to make was who she would take to the upcoming Winter Dance: her boyfriend, Philip, or her ex, Luke. Now, she's not even human. She's an Angel. This book is recommended for 16 years or older due to adult scenes and situations.

Opinions:
Angel Diaries is a young adult book that follows Lindsey on her discovery that she is part angel. She also is involved with a long triangle between her ex-boyfriend and her current boyfriend. Her best friend, Jia, is a psychic (and technically a medium because she sees ghosts.)

The book is written in first person through Lindsey’s perspective. Lindsey lives with her mother. In the prologue, we learned that her mother was ripped in half at her wedding and taken captive by a witch. He returns her, but she is pregnant with Lindsey. The story continues when Lindsey is a teenager. Lindsey has boy trouble in that she can’t seem to commit to one of her interests. She is constantly going back and forth between Luke (the ex-boyfriend) and Phillip (the new boyfriend.) The characters, in general, are not well-developed. For example, their backgrounds tend to be vague. Her mother at times doesn’t even seem like a mother, but rather another teenage roommate. We don’t hear about her past. We don’t really know much about her father when she finds out about him. Her best friend, Jia, has recently discovered she is psychic, yet we do not know how or why. We don’t even know exactly how her psychic powers work.

The writing itself felt very choppy – even for a diary form. Ideas or events are not smoothly done. The grammar also adds to the roughness. She writes the diary as if she were speaking – so things are not grammatically correct (and tenses are switched throughout the book.) The plot mostly involves the love triangle – switching between the two boys who seem to like to pressure her into picking himself. The angel/preparing for some unknown battle is just a tiny portion of the book, and that is not even fully explained. I understand this is only supposed to be the first book, but there should be more explanation. It was like everything made sense in the author’s mind; but when writing it down, she left holes that the reader could not fill. I also didn’t understand the whole Goth versus preppy thing. Although it was the stereotypical Goth version, it didn’t connect back to either the love triangle or the angel part of the story. In other words, this book (in the summary) has potential and a gripping prologue, but it probably needs some editing to things out.… (plus d'informations)

I'm not going to give this book a rating for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't finish it. Normally that would warrant a one star rating. Second, I really want to support self-published authors. I realize how much work it takes to write and then publish your work and I cringe at the thought that this book's first rating would be so low. As you read the rest of this review, please keep in mind that I did not finish the book and it is possible that some of the things I have a problem with are explained later on in the book.

Having said that, here's why I didn't finish it:

I have a 100 page policy. An author has 100 pages to create a setting, characters and circumstances that are worth spending my time with. I didn't really find that here. There were a lot of inconsistencies and annoying and unrealistic characters.

First, the book is written in what I presume are supposed to be diary entries. The headings give the time of day and the location of the main character. I say "supposed to be diary entries" because they don't really read like diary entries. They are written from the main characters point of view and in past tense as a diary entry would be but, in general, that's where the similarities end. I think most people writing in a diary would not be describing things in detail or writing long lengths of dialogue. A diary is for yourself - not for anyone else so since you had already experienced what you're writing about, you would write more about your reactions and feelings than about the details of the event.

Second, I really disliked the main character, Lindsey. She comes off as very immature and wishy-washy. She's stringing along these two guys, her boyfriend Phillip and her ex-boyfriend Luke. She says she's so in love with her boyfriend, but then in the next sentence she's making out with her ex. Then she doesn't understand why her boyfriend won't talk to her... The whole situation was ridiculous and there were a couple of scenes in particular (the movie theater, for example) that were particularly ridiculous.

There were other parts of the book that didn't make a whole lot of sense, either. You can check out my updates while reading to see them.

Overall, I was irritated by the main character, did not understand the actions of the supporting characters, found inconsistencies with them and with the storyline and generally found this frustrating to read. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this book.
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