Named after Brielle by Owl city/Sky sailing?

"Brielle went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She’s come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and an incredible, numbing cold she can’t seem to shake.

Jake’s the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption."

I'm a sucker for a good angel/demon book, and this one didn't disappoint. The quick description above describes the beginning of the book very well. Brielle is wounded and looking for some peace, and Jake is there to help her when she needs it the most.

I liked the characters in this book very much. Brielle and her dad, and Jake and his guardian, Canaan, were the perfect protagonists/MCs as they were very likeable, and Brielle and Jake showed definite growth as the story progressed. I wish we could have found out what the tragedy was that brought Brielle back home sooner rather than later, but when we did learn what it was all about, it was worth the wait. The story took off in a new direction when we did, which made the story even more intriguing.

In summary, I enjoyed this YA angel/demon story very much, and give it an enthusiastic 5/5 stars!

I received a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion. ( )

'Angel Eyes' by Shannon Dittemore is a supernatural, angel themed YA read with religious undertones. While I didn't love this novel, there were some aspects I really did enjoy. Jumping right to the point, I liked that Brielle wasn't your typical heroine. Normally, our female leads are in a 'fish out of water' position. In this case, Brielle was coming back from her 'fish out of water' experience. She had lived and grown before the novel even started. We are introduced to her when she's at a bit of a low point in her life, coming back from this big, life changing event. I loved that.

Brielle, as a character, was a solid main character. Her reactions and thoughts seemed natural and she was a pretty relatable character. The other characters were also engaging. Jake, the love interest, seemed to have more of a role in the story than most male leads in past angel themed novels.

The reason I didn't rate this novel higher mostly falls on pacing. The beginning and end were fine, but the middle dragged a bit. I had to push through it, because I didn't want to give up on 'Angel Eyes' when I liked the characters and the overall storyline. That being said, it took some skimming through the middle bits to get back to a point where I felt I should read word for word, page by page.

This novel isn't for everyone. If you don't like books with slight religious undertones, 'Angel Eyes' might not be your cup of tea. However, the characters and the overall storyline are worth giving this a looksie otherwise! 'Angel Eyes' gets 2 out of 5 stars and is available wherever books are sold. ( )

Originally posted here.

Yet again, I must preface this review by saying that I myself am not religious. I'm an agnostic that doesn't have any religious background. I've had a lot of really close friends who are very religious, but I still have trouble with Christian fiction, which is mostly tied in to my hatred for proselytizing. Religious views can be conveyed subtly in novels, but usually it feels like I'm being whopped over the head with the Godly gavel, which leaves a rather nasty headache.

I've read a couple of other Thomas Nelson titles recently, Halflings and Swipe, and neither was too religious for me, even though Halflings was also about angels. Angel Eyes, though, definitely pushed a little too hard. I actually really liked the book until about halfway through, and then it perpetually made me roll my eyes more and more as the religious elements became steadily more heavy-fisted.

I'm going to start with the good stuff. First off, the writing is excellent. Told from Brielle's perspective, I can feel her pain. At the opening, she is broken, unable to cope with her friend Ali's murder, and the fact that she could possibly have prevented it. The writing conveys her brokenness and you can feel how cut off from others she is. You can also feel her warming up, literally, and recovering as she meets Jake.

The darkness of the story, not the sugary lightness of the usual inspirational fiction, was definitely a big plus. Dittemore tackles the big issues of death, grief, and why God would allow good people to die. Unfortunately, there's just not really any new ground or new answers she can, or at least does, provide to those issues. Still, I liked that she at least tried.

What I didn't like was the way the religion worked in the book. Brielle is not a believer at the start, because of her mother's and friend's deaths. Then she meets Jake, who stalks her (this only freaks her out for like five seconds) and he heals a broken bone for her. After that, he promises to tell her everything, but has to go on a trip with his dad, Canaan, so he leaves her a gold 'cuff,' which the girl does not recognize as a halo. Really?

My issues are twofold. Brielle doesn't have a choice but to believe. When she puts the halo on, she sees the celestial realm. She now knows angels on a first name basis. A big part of Christian faith, as I understand it, and this is even mentioned in the book, is based on faith without proof, but she gets to have proof. That's not fair! Her choice to be a non-believer has been taken away from her. And yet other people aren't told. If faith is the key to Heaven, and some people are shown the truth and others are left to believe in something they see no evidence of, that's a rigged system. Does He really want particular people to fail and some to go to Heaven?

This book also suffers from another problem I see in a lot of Christian fiction, namely that God and his forces do everything. Brielle, and even Jake, are mostly useless as far as the confrontations with evil go. For all that God isn't supposed to intervene to protect people, his angels sure do all of the defensive work. This is inconsistent and also makes me wonder why we're even following these teens, when they're clearly just being lead around by God's plan. The book says there's a choice, but there's not.

If I enjoyed Christian fiction, I think I would have liked this. If you agree with the view point being conveyed here, then you'll probably enjoy it, as the novel is well-written. I would have liked to see more of the heroine (particularly, why have her be a ballerina if she only dances once for like two pages?) and I'd like to see her more empowered. I will not be reading the second book, but I do recommend this book to people who aren't turned off by God as a character. ( )

I really wish books like Angel Eyes came with a disclaimer. Warning: This is not your typical YA paranormal novel. Cause it’s not. It’s too “happy” and “safe” for my liking. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters, particularly Brielle. She felt over-emotional and moody. Like she’d be one to watch Titanic 12 times in a row and still cry when Jack died. I think her over-emotional behavior was intended…meaning it related to the supernatural elements in the story, but it really hurt her likability for me.

Jake is super creepy. I don’t know why Brielle liked him so much right off the bat, but if some guy happened to be everywhere I was, I’d call the cops. It was even so ridiculous that she was out in the middle of her woods in pitch black, he finds her before anyone knew she was missing, takes her to her shed, and magically heals her. And she didn’t think any of this was odd. Hmm. Oh, and Brielle is constantly saying how “hot” Jack is. As in, physical body temperature.

And then, Brielle finally comes home way way late with Jack. She runs into her father who says that he had filled a missing person report. Brielle tells him where she was and her Dad was completely level-headed. Yeah…teenage girl stays out late, comes home with strange boy, and Dad is all honkey-dorey?

What I did like was the detail put into Brielle’s hobby of photographing. I like how it played a role in the plot and wasn’t an afterthought. The plot for me was fairly slow. The story doesn’t start having a purpose until half-way through where we find out that someone is after Brielle. The pace slows down again. More explaining and other stuff. There were a few gems hidden in the novel, parts that I definitely enjoyed, but overall it was either lackluster or non-realistic.

Besides the 1st person narration of Brielle, there is also Damian, who is a fallen angel trying to corrupt both Brielle and Jack. I found that his narration was more intriguing to me than hers. I’m always in the mood for a good villain and though I know early on that he probably won’t succeed, I can’t help routing for the guy.

This book is completely not my style. It’s suppose to be uplifting and whatnot, but I really don’t enjoy books like that. If I had known, I wouldn’t have bothered picking it up to begin with. The writing style is bland, coherent but bland. I wish there was less emphasis on dialogue and more on action. It seemed like most of the interesting things in the book happened before the book takes place.

Also, there are Christian themes that by themselves wouldn’t bother me. There’s a lot of talk about fate and predetermined choices and non-believers. I don’t mind it in a story, but I wish it took up less space in this book. I’d rather be entertained than preached at. Angel Eyes isn’t a bad book and I can see how people will love it, but I think its targeted audience will be disappointed. ( )