Mel’s Reviews > Angels Before Man > Status Update

like. all the care into food descriptions, the love put into the descriptions of every day mundane tasks like they're beautiful and special, of spending time with others, the eternal peace of heaven, it's done so well! but it gets dragged out and repeated over and over unto tedium. i didnt find lucifer's insecurities annoying like some folks but the repetitions of how beautiful he is gets obnoxious, and there's no depth at all to he and michael's relationship--hell, there's little depth to ANY character, they're very shallow and same-y.

Conceptually this book is great and i actually admire the odd prose choices and the pacing even if i didnt click with it, but so far it's failing to do or say anything significant or with any level of depth and it makes some severely questionable choices in the second half that make me not want to bother reading the rest of it :/ i'm never this harsh on a book--especially when it's indie!-- but this will very likely be a one or two star. i'm sad. (

i think the nicest thing i can say about this is you can tell the author put his heart into it at least, even if it's not particularly amazing. there are moments where the prose shines and you're like "shit this book could have been so good." it's not at all bad for an indie debut (i have read way worse way less consistent for sure) i just wish i liked it more

update: lots of good ideas, did not hate the second half nor the odd prose decisions at the end like a lot of critical reviewers did. i actually like that he did some unique stuff with the sort of stream of consciousness / thoughts interwoven with dialog / perspective jumps within paragraphs because it made the narration have a distinct sound and i think you could still follow it. i like when indie authors just do whatever they want sometimes with prose or just general unconventional writing decisions lmao. sometimes i prefer it.

lots of ideas that didnt quite flourish, unfortunately. some great stuff trapped in a novel that never quite shines (that Uriel section in the second half stuck out to me the most, holy shit was straight up horror. i think hes actually probably one of the only interesting developed characters). there are some really lovely moments with the prose and some stuff that kinda misses and ends up too flowery.

unfortunately from glancing at reviews it seems like the second book is more of the same, which is a shame because i think this author has tons of potential and would like to see him improve. I'd give it a 2.5/2.8 out of 5, it's not quite 'just okay' but i wouldnt say i liked it as a whole.