Firstly, I am in no way, shape, or form the intended audience of this book. I couldn't care less for sports of any kind (least of all, baseball) and I am not religious (and if I were, I'd still be the wrong denomination Christian for this). It was a frustrating read, but occasionally it struck a cord and I have to give it that.
Now, the angels in the title and who tie this whole series together are completely superfluous and occasionally annoying. The story would have flown much better without their presence and even the Christian elements would have been improved upon. As it is, all the "bad guys" are non-christian and all the people who help Tyler are devout, faithful and all that shit, except they wouldn't do anything unless the angels nudged them more or less subtly.
The protagonists are dull- Sami is incredibly naive and Tyler needed to be dealt a life-shattering blow in order to stop being an asshole. The only characters I enjoyed were Mary-Catherine and Virginia and even that in small doses.
The author takes precious time to catalogue every single movement when a character is "on screen", which eventually strikes you as a lot of padding (every intake and outtake of breath, every time Tyler picks up an object or greets someone, it must be mentioned he's doing it with his good arm, if he's drinking water in his car - and that happens a lot - it has to be mentioned that it's from a water bottle etc). There is very little left to the reader to do.
Also, is it really necessary to mention that Simi Valley is in California? 100 pages in? After a number of flashbacks and discussions about the place?