Sabrina Benulis - Archon

Angela Mathers is plagued by visions of angels, supernatural creatures who haunt her thoughts by day and seduce her dreams by night. Newly released from a mental institution where she was locked away for two years, she hopes that her time at the Vatican’s university, the West Wood Academy, will give her a chance at a normal life. Unlike ordinary humans, Angela is a blood head — a freak, a monster, the possible fulfillment of a terrifying prophecy of overwhelming death and destruction. Only in Luz, the Vatican’s wondrous enclave, are blood heads accepted and encouraged to discover what kind of powers or special abilities they might possess.
But within West Wood, a secret coven plots, and demons and angels roam the streets searching for the key to open Raziel’s book — a secret tome from a lost archangel. Some are determined to destroy Raziel, while others, like the beautiful Supernal Israfel, one of the highest of the high, wish to free him. And when the Archon — the human chosen to possess the spirit of a dead angel — rises as foretold, they will control the supernatural universe.
Torn between mortal love and angelic obsession, Angela holds the key to Heaven and Hell — and both will stop at nothing to possess her.

Comment: In my attempt to get off the TBR list some of the oldest standing books there, I picked this book since it had been in the shelf since 2012. At the time, I remember I got it because I was a lot more into the PNR genre and its sub genres, such as this (described) YA PNR promise. I must also say, and many readers probably agree, the cover is quite simply gorgeous and that has certainly won over many people as well...

In this book we meet Angela Mathers, a very troubled student who has joined an elite academy to not only try to be closer to her brother (with whom she doesn't have a good relationship) but also to explore the purpose of her dreams that have for so often caused her issues.

Angela lives in a world where people with red hair are considered possible incarnations of evil according to many prophecies so she joins an academy ruled by the Vatican where students are taught all kinds of things and, at the same time, the search for the possible reincarnation of an evil angel can happen more easily since it's believed it will be a blood head, or someone like Angela, with red heir.

However, in this new academy Angela only finds more trouble and doubts and the few discoveries only bring pain and loss...

Looks can be deceiving. The beauty of the cover didn't disguise the fact this was not a good read for me. I suppose it had been waiting for so long, it just didn't appeal anymore and I foresee a bad experience trying to go through other books in the genre I have but who knows, some might be gems.

This story was not very confusing in general terms: we basically have a girl who is the reincarnation of a bad angel and she will cause evil, death, etc. on the world. So, to restrict the search for this person (it's not clear at first Angela is the one) the Vatican, as the supposedly main entity knowledgeable on angels, created a place, the Luz academy, where young students are watched and taught what there is to do about fighting evil. Most are red-heads with some weird traits which apparently is a clever way to minimize the search for the potential reincarnation of the bad angel.

The confusing part is how the author mixed up so many different ideas to explain things. I can imagine this all makes sense in her head but how that was put on the page I doubt it was well done. Of course, this is relative and many did like the story.

I liked the angels theme. I've read some other series where they are portrayed as PNR characters that still held human traits such as compassion, love and many other things. In this world mrs Benulis created, they angels are more complex. They do act like humans but they believe they are superior beings and this dynamic is obviously a way to oppose them but it means we have separate "teams" of sorts. It just made the angels seem to distant and separate from the rest and none was approachable.

In fact, I should say this about all characters. I sincerely didn't like any, including the heroine Angela. To summarize, I'd say the author put so much detail into the angels' lore and dynamics, to the weird and paranormal aspects of the story she just didn't create believable characters or at least someone the reader would care about. Every description is so unfriendly I wouldn't want to spend time with any of the characters. 

Then revelations about this one and that one, human or not, keep happening and I just lost interest. It's as if I couldn't hold on to anything that would make me root for the characters so I just started turning pages from a certain point on.

I would say say the YA factor is useless. Why do these characters have to be placed at such a young age? Besides they not acting their supposed age, most of them aren't even real teenagers! So pointless, and I would think a basic high fantasy story would have worked out better because connecting the rules of this world with the aspects of YA personalities in a real school environment just didn't match.

This is the first of a trilogy so I imagine more about Angela and the other (still alive) characters will be further developed. That must have been why several things were not explained or seemed to have had an end. Some details were just too vague to give any sense of closure and several descriptions led nowhere. 

I can appreciate the idea of this story but the amount of details and the lack of empathy with the character's plights and actions just turned this into something boring and I won't read the other books.

Grade: 4/10