S. L. Duncan

I received this book free in exchange for an honest review. This is the third book in a trilogy. Let me begin by saying that I had not read the first two books and the publisher was kind enough to send me those to read first. I read the first one but skipped the second to go straight to the third. I didn't enjoy the first and couldn't bear the thought of having to read two more. The third book, Evolution of Gabriel Adam, was no better than the first and, honestly, I only read to page 220 (about 2/3 of the book). I couldn't finish it. The books are about a 17 year old boy named Gabriel and he's the archangel Gabriel but he doesn't know it at first. In the 17th year of his life he finds out he is an archangel, gets some powers and is supposed to save the world, along with a could other "teen" archangels. Basically that's the premise of all three books. This is a YA book and I am a 50 year old woman so maybe that's part of the reason I found this book so boring. However, I've read plenty of other YA books that I've enjoyed. This book had plenty of action and yet it was boring. I felt like the same action scene had been written over and over with just slightly different aspects to it. Basically Gabriel encounters some "demon" and gets beat up. Then before he gets killed he is suddenly able to harness his power and he defeats the demon. That is every action scene. The book moves so slowly. Three books could have been written into one. The characters are superficial and, considering there are three long books in this series, no time was spent developing them. We barely get a glimpse into their background story. Unless that was covered in book two which I didn't read. One other thing that I found difficult to read was the amount of biblical references. Now, I know this is about archangels and so some religious story is certainly appropriate but, I think the author assumes that the reader is very well versed in the Christian religion and makes references that I just didn't understand. BTW, I'm not very religious but I am a Christian. I wish I had enjoyed this book. I was really excited to read about an archangel protagonist but it just didn't hold my attention. I found myself skimming through many pages and in the end I just couldn't finish the book.… (mehr)