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Fallen Angels: Book 1 - Welcome To Munich
Book by McConnell, Gregory Austin
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 18, 2018
Terrible, I loved it.
October 11, 2018
I am a fan of the author’s YouTube presence which is how I came to read this book. In one of his most interesting videos he spends time talking about how much he hates this book and wants to wipe it from existence so as to save the embarrassment of his fans ripping it to shreds. It’s a brilliant video and definitely worth the 15 minutes to watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyQAV...
When I saw that he had released an audiobook version of the book on YouTube I got excited. How bad could the book be that he wanted all trace of it gone? If the book was truly as bad as he thought it was, why undo the work of getting it out of the public access? From what I’ve seen this is due to outcry from us fans who are curious to read what he regretted so much.
I’m weirdly sad to report that the book isn’t that bad. The word that comes to mind is meh. I was expecting a hot mess of a story with extremely bad choices and lazy writing. Instead of being a book that is so bad it’s good, I feel like the book is incredibly forgettable. It would not have left much of an impact had the above video not been produced.
Nothing in the book was particularly bad, it just wasn’t expanded upon. There’s a part of the story about depression and suicide for example that really seems like it could have done with a bit more story explained. I get that the audience for the book was supposed to be teenagers but I think it could have been handled in more detail without going awry. The book is shallow in this regard and limits the quality.
I think what helps the book is that it is short in story. The only thing worse than a bad book is a bad book that is too long. My go-to example is I Am Pilgrim (my New Year’s Resolution will be to stop trashing that book so much). Though some of the chapters could have done with more detail the story doesn’t drag unnecessarily to pad out the length. I appreciate that.
Had this book still been in publication I likely wouldn’t have read it. I haven’t gotten around to reading all the books I want to read, let alone ones that I have never heard of.
I’d like to think that I’m not going easy on the book just because it’s from a person I like. The fiction books that I find myself harbouring a disdain for are the ones that are needlessly long, lazily written or completely miss the mark. If Fallen Angels came across as religious propaganda or was sexist we would be having a different conversation. Instead, Fallen Angels gets a mediocre score for being unremarkable.
McConnell is very critical of his own book and it’s proof that a lot of the time we are our own biggest critics. In any event his removal of the book seems to have resulted in a Streisand effect. McConnell you may not be a terrific author if your debut is anything to go by, but you’re an earnest one. I think me and the rest of your audience would be interested if you tried to tell the story again now that you’ve grown and know what you dislike about the book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyQAV...
When I saw that he had released an audiobook version of the book on YouTube I got excited. How bad could the book be that he wanted all trace of it gone? If the book was truly as bad as he thought it was, why undo the work of getting it out of the public access? From what I’ve seen this is due to outcry from us fans who are curious to read what he regretted so much.
I’m weirdly sad to report that the book isn’t that bad. The word that comes to mind is meh. I was expecting a hot mess of a story with extremely bad choices and lazy writing. Instead of being a book that is so bad it’s good, I feel like the book is incredibly forgettable. It would not have left much of an impact had the above video not been produced.
Nothing in the book was particularly bad, it just wasn’t expanded upon. There’s a part of the story about depression and suicide for example that really seems like it could have done with a bit more story explained. I get that the audience for the book was supposed to be teenagers but I think it could have been handled in more detail without going awry. The book is shallow in this regard and limits the quality.
I think what helps the book is that it is short in story. The only thing worse than a bad book is a bad book that is too long. My go-to example is I Am Pilgrim (my New Year’s Resolution will be to stop trashing that book so much). Though some of the chapters could have done with more detail the story doesn’t drag unnecessarily to pad out the length. I appreciate that.
Had this book still been in publication I likely wouldn’t have read it. I haven’t gotten around to reading all the books I want to read, let alone ones that I have never heard of.
I’d like to think that I’m not going easy on the book just because it’s from a person I like. The fiction books that I find myself harbouring a disdain for are the ones that are needlessly long, lazily written or completely miss the mark. If Fallen Angels came across as religious propaganda or was sexist we would be having a different conversation. Instead, Fallen Angels gets a mediocre score for being unremarkable.
McConnell is very critical of his own book and it’s proof that a lot of the time we are our own biggest critics. In any event his removal of the book seems to have resulted in a Streisand effect. McConnell you may not be a terrific author if your debut is anything to go by, but you’re an earnest one. I think me and the rest of your audience would be interested if you tried to tell the story again now that you’ve grown and know what you dislike about the book.
July 19, 2018
While cheesy and preachy, this book is not nearly the abomination Austin makes it out to be in his very entertaining YouTube video essay, "Erasing My Awful Book From The History Of The Internet." You did better than teenage-me would have ever done, Austin! I'm proud of you for taking on the unthinkable task of providing today's video (for the uninitiated--the full audiobook of said regrettable tome) for my delight.
June 20, 2019
I been wanting to hear this book since the author posted last year in his YouTube channel but I never was at the mood till today. The author believes that this book is so bad that he try to buy all the books so we won’t buy the book. He made a promise that if he reached 500k he would made audiobook for us to hear. Now for the book it is not bad I actually like it sure I would like further characters detail on their lives. To be fair he wrote this when he was a teenager so maybe he should have check his writing before publishing. In the end like the audiobook and the story.
November 16, 2020
While there are moments of pure eye-rolling cringe, and some lines of dialogue that you would never hear anyone actually utter, it's not a bad attempt from a creator who has only grown to improve.
July 22, 2018
It wasn't as bad as you put it up to be Austin. I admit it wasn't the greatest and had a somewhat vague plot, but it wasn't the worst thing I have ever read.
February 10, 2019
Not what you call a decent read but, lt is a lot better than the hellish thing the author made it out to be. l am a fan of Austin's YT channel and for a laugh, I am giving it 5 stars
August 8, 2022
I've been listening to a ton of audio-books recently and finding out that a YouTube creator I like made one of his old cringe worthy book I decided to give it a listen. Well after listening to it I thought "you know what this isn't the worst thing written" but at the same time I still had some gripes, lets start with those shall we.
First of all I found most of the characters are really flat, we get introduced to so many of them in such a short book. I laughed at this part near the beginning when Charlie Wade (our protagonist) is talking about his cigarettes (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him ever having one in the entire book), I don't know why it made me laugh, it just did. I found some of the dialogue cheesy, there's a chapter that takes place in the character that is a cop (whose name I can't remember)'s house and it feels straight out of a family sitcom, there's a mother cooking and everything, trust me.
Now for a few positives: I found the story of a guy who gets punished for saving somebody interesting, although knowing this was written by an-at-the-time-teenager I wouldn't be surprised if all of the legal stuff is not accurate. I thought Harmony was a decent character, I sorta cared for her a little more than Charlie.
I do have one other problem with this book, it doesn't feel like a complete story it feels more like episode one of a TV show. So at the end of the book I felt more like the story stopped then ended, due to the other books in this series being unpublished.
I would never recommend this book to anyone, unless you want a quick mediocre YA read.
First of all I found most of the characters are really flat, we get introduced to so many of them in such a short book. I laughed at this part near the beginning when Charlie Wade (our protagonist) is talking about his cigarettes (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him ever having one in the entire book), I don't know why it made me laugh, it just did. I found some of the dialogue cheesy, there's a chapter that takes place in the character that is a cop (whose name I can't remember)'s house and it feels straight out of a family sitcom, there's a mother cooking and everything, trust me.
Now for a few positives: I found the story of a guy who gets punished for saving somebody interesting, although knowing this was written by an-at-the-time-teenager I wouldn't be surprised if all of the legal stuff is not accurate. I thought Harmony was a decent character, I sorta cared for her a little more than Charlie.
I do have one other problem with this book, it doesn't feel like a complete story it feels more like episode one of a TV show. So at the end of the book I felt more like the story stopped then ended, due to the other books in this series being unpublished.
I would never recommend this book to anyone, unless you want a quick mediocre YA read.
September 7, 2021
I decided to listen to this audiobook because I was really interested to see why the author was so determined to erase all physical copies from the world.
1. Considering a teenager wrote this for a competition it wasn't all that bad, I still write worse than this.
2. It wasn't very good though. It had potential but the pacing seemed strange and the whole depression/suicide narrative felt too rushed. Harmony didn't really do much. I also have no idea what the other 7(?) Books would have been about because it felt like the story wrapped up more or less. I'm also pretty sure that in the YT video the author said this was a YA book aimed at the same audience as like animorphs but this seemed like a full adult novel to me.
I gave it 2 stars because I thought it had more problems than positives but I honestly don't think it was anywhere near as bad as it was made out to be and considering it was written by a teenager McConnell should be proud of making a complete story, it just needed a bit more editing.
1. Considering a teenager wrote this for a competition it wasn't all that bad, I still write worse than this.
2. It wasn't very good though. It had potential but the pacing seemed strange and the whole depression/suicide narrative felt too rushed. Harmony didn't really do much. I also have no idea what the other 7(?) Books would have been about because it felt like the story wrapped up more or less. I'm also pretty sure that in the YT video the author said this was a YA book aimed at the same audience as like animorphs but this seemed like a full adult novel to me.
I gave it 2 stars because I thought it had more problems than positives but I honestly don't think it was anywhere near as bad as it was made out to be and considering it was written by a teenager McConnell should be proud of making a complete story, it just needed a bit more editing.
May 5, 2021
I obviously learned about this book and listened to the audiobook of it on the AustinMcConnell Youtube channel (a channel that I have been following for a couple of years now), but I won't let my following of the channel influence my opinion. That being said, this book honestly wasn't terrible. Sure it wasn't great, it has some character issues and some writing that was not great, but then again, he was a teenager when he wrote this book so I won't hold it against him at all. This book is not great, but all things considered it is better than I had been expecting. So if you want to get a peek into the backstory of Gregory Austin McConnell, sure, read this book, but if you are just trying to find audiobooks on Youtube and want to know if you should read this book, I wouldn't recommend it for you.
January 25, 2023
The book has quite the bad reputation. I only started reading it for the memes. Everyone (including the author, he has continued to write but under a different name) want nothing to do with this book. However, after reading it its far from the worst books I've read (hell it isn't even the worst book I read today). I won't be giving this book any profession critiques, because this book was written years ago and I'm sure that McConnell has learned any lessons he could from this book. You won't be able to get your hands on a copy of this book, because as far as I know only one copy still exists. But, even if you could I won't recommend it. The best I can say is, its a generic YA book.
July 18, 2018
Very gripping & thought provoking. Well written & I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it read by the Author. You can listen to it on youtube, just search "Austin McConnell book".
I hope he continues the series.
I hope he continues the series.
February 10, 2022
The whole book I was waiting for the story to start until it revealed at the end that there would be another book. Of course now there will never be another book. So I just sat through two hours of an audio book that was nothing like the dust jacket.
July 2, 2023
McConnell has frequently made fun of his own first book for being written poorly by him as a teenager but the truth is that this book managed to keep me engaged from start to finish which is a hell of a lot more than most books can say.
February 21, 2020
Very short and pretty boring but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
Read
April 1, 2021This is actually a really good drama but it reads like the first act of a three act play. I really wish there were more.
September 13, 2021
This was terrible. I loved it. In Austin's own words: "It's a doozy."
January 30, 2022
Listened to the audiobook of this infamously bad novel by famous YouTuber Austin McConnell.
November 11, 2024
Really not that bad
August 7, 2021
2021- FYI- I do not have a physical copy of this book. Please do not continue asking.
2012- Needs a good edit job and some sort of seperation when switching points of view at minimum
2012- Needs a good edit job and some sort of seperation when switching points of view at minimum
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews