 Okay, so some of you have probably figured this out based on the title, but I have now finished the Halo Trilogy by Alexandra Adornetto. This is the latest crappy Angel Young Adult Twilight Clone romance thing that I bought a lot of, well almost a year ago now. And this is just the most recent one, and I will say it's the worst one so far. Look, I read Fallen, and that one was awful, that one was really bad, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't. But it did have moments that I liked, you know there were a few little bits that I was into and there were some ideas that even if they weren't explored the way they probably should have been, they were interesting ideas that did pull me in a little bit, but overall it was, you know, a bad story. And hush hush, I actually thought was okay, and you can actually check out my review of it, which I posted back in January because by the view count a lot of you did not check out that review, so go do that, and that one again had some dumb stuff in it, but overall I was like, yes, this is alright. Halo is basically all of the boring bits from Fallen and hush hush, but without any of the fun ones. Like, this shit does not even try, it does not try to have a story or mystery or tension or character development of any sort, like I'm not even joking with that, pretty much every character in this entire series begins it the same way they end it, or in some cases they regress, I did not even realize that was possible. Well first of all, through God all things are possible, so jot that down. Now I'll admit that before I started this one, I did have hope. Like maybe it was foolish of me to have hope, but I had hope, because this one is at least a little bit different. See normally with these crappy Twilight clones, it's a normal girl who just runs into a supernatural boy, and then they have a crazy romance with, it's not actually crazy, it's just really stupid and boring and sometimes abusive, but in this case it was the opposite. See the main character, Bethany, is an angel who comes down to Earth, along with other angels, and she meets a human boy, and they fall in love. So in that case, okay, at least the main character sounds like she would be the more interesting one rather than her love interest, and maybe she'll be less of a damsel in distress, which I turned out to be wrong about that, but um, well I had hope. Now like I said, Bethany is an angel who comes down to Earth, along with a couple of other angels, to help humans. You know, like the world is full of all these problems, crime, natural disasters, war, all that, and so the angels come down to help humans get rid of all that and make the world better. The thing is, Bethany and company don't go to like a war zone, or a country plagued with famine, or anything like that, that they could actually help people. They just go to a regular small town, which doesn't have any major issues, and while she's there she meets a cute boy, and that is, that's basically the whole series. See in the first book, there really isn't any conflict at all for the majority of the page count. Like the biggest question that we're supposed to care so much about that we're thinking, oh man, I hope this works out for the main characters, like the biggest issue is who is Bethany going to take to prom? And we'll get more into that when we reach that point, but yeah, that's the biggest problem. This whole thing is nothing but first world problems, which might be fine, well actually it wouldn't be fine, but this thing is almost 500 pages long, and there's a little bit of a plot that comes in at the very end, but nonetheless, this is a lot. And then the second one, which is Hades, I will admit this one is the best, which is not saying much, but it is, you know, it is the best credit where it's due, because this one at least tries to have a storyline. You know, like there is something bad that happens near the beginning, and then the rest of the book is Bethany and the other characters trying to fix it and make sure that nothing horrible happens to them after that. You know, I was never into it, but I could at least see that it was trying. And then when they got to the third book, Heaven, they just completely gave up. Like there's absolutely no plot with that one. Or more accurately, there's like seven different storylines which do not intersect at all and are all solved very easily. But again, we will get to that when we have to get to that. Now, normally, when I'm doing book reviews, but especially when I'm doing these really long and depth ones, I try to avoid other reviews. Like, you know, I try to avoid looking at them on Goodreads and stuff, because I just want to go into it with as blank of a slate as I can so that my opinion isn't being affected by anyone else's. This one, I made an exception and just out of curiosity, I did check out the reviews on Goodreads. And the thing is with most books, whatever their genre, whatever their intended audience, most of the time, the top couple of reviews, you will have both one-star reviews and five-star reviews because there will be people that loved it that wrote something that was helpful for others, so they pushed it to the top, and there will be people that hated it and they wrote a review that was helpful for others, so they pushed it to the top. This one, all of the top reviews are one-star. You have to go down 18 spots before you hit anything that's higher than a one-star. Oh, shit, that's a bad sign. Like, I knew at that point that maybe I shouldn't have hope, and in fact, most of my hope was dashed at that point, but still, still, I did keep an open mind as much as I could, and man, this review, I don't know if it's going to be really all that long. This one might be relatively short because despite the forest of tabs that I put in these, it's mostly just boring. You know, like, sure, there's some story beats and stuff where I can point out, okay, that was kind of dumb, and there's some bits about like the world and stuff that I can point out that doesn't really make much sense to them we can talk about, but there's only so many different ways I can say like, yeah, this bit was unexciting and there's not really anything interesting happening here, and then this other bit was not very exciting and there's nothing happening here. They're just kind of wandering around doing stuff. Like, there's only so many different ways I can do that, so we'll have to wait and see, but this one might be short. So, let's begin with the first book, Halo. Now, this one, like most terrible books, opens with a couple of pretentious quotes that have nothing to do with the story at hand. It's something from Romeo and Juliet, which I don't care about, and the second one is from Beyonce, Halo. Baby, I can see your halo, you know you're my saving grace, which is a dumb song and I don't like it, and it doesn't really tie into anything other than, oh, it's about angels. Now, the story itself opens up with Bethany and the other angels descending down to Earth, and they get seen by somebody, but it's not really a big deal. He looked up just in time to see a column of white light receding into the clouds, leaving three wraith-like strangers standing in the middle of the road. Despite our human form, something about us startled him, perhaps it was our skin, which was as luminous as the moon, or our loose white traveling garments, which were in tatters from the turbulent descent. Perhaps it was the way he looked at our limbs, as though we had no idea what to do with them, or the water vapor still clinging to our hair. Whatever the reason, the boy lost his balance, swerved his bike, and crashed into the gutter. He scrambled to his feet and stood transfixed for several seconds, caught between alarm and curiosity. In unison, we reached out our hands in what we hoped to him was a gesture of reassurance, but forgot to smile. By the time we remembered how, it was too late. As we contorted our mouths in an attempt to get it right, the boy turned on his heel and fled. Having a physical body was still foreign to us. There were so many different parts that needed to run concurrently, like a complex machine. The muscles in my face and body were stiff. My legs were trembling like a child's taking his first steps, and my eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the muted Earth's light. Having come from a place of dazzling light, shadows were foreign to us. Gabriel approached the bicycle with its front wheel still spinning and righted it. He propped it up against the closest fence, knowing the boy would return later to collect it. Are you seeing the problem yet? You might have to think about it for a minute or two, but the issue is that everything that happens in this book, like every setting, every character description, every little detailed action that happens, has way too much detail and goes off on a million little tangents. Like, this whole bit... I'm not saying you can't have detail in your writing, like some people prefer having a lot. I myself sometimes prefer it, but you got to know when to cut the fat, and this is definitely an event where you cut the fat. Like, this whole almost a page and a half that I just read should have been condensed down to, like, three quarters of a page maybe, and it would have been fine. But the thing is, just doing it this once at the beginning, not that big a deal. Every scene in this book does it. Like, every scene goes on around 25 to 30% longer than it needs to, just because of that. Like, there are scenes where characters are having a conversation, there will be one line of dialogue, and then about a page of description and Bethany's thoughts and just going off on random tangents, and then the response to that line of dialogue. And that happened multiple times, and several times I, by the time we got to the response, I had forgotten what was said earlier, so I had to go back real quick and check and go, oh yeah, okay, that was it. Like, it feels kind of like the author thought that this book was too short, this 500 page book was too short, and then rather than adding like additional subplots or character development or anything like that, she just decided to throw a bunch more description in there and way overdid it, which is how we got to this length. And the thing about having too much description as well is that when it's constant, when it's all the time, it feels like everything is supposed to be important, which means that nothing is important, and that tends to make readers space out. Like, there were a lot of points in this where I just spaced out and read a couple of paragraphs and realized that I did not comprehend anything that had happened. And that happens sometimes when I'm like sleepy or something. Usually I'll just go back and reread it so I can make sure I didn't miss anything. In this, sometimes I would get a few paragraphs or a page in and realize I had caught nothing, and I would just keep going, and maybe there was something important there, but I kind of doubt it. So the three angels here are, like I said, Bethany, and then her siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, and they're all just angels who, like I said before, go down by God to this town. It's called Venus Cove, and they're here to make it better. It's a very vague mission. The parameters are never really properly explained, and they never do a whole lot to make it better anyways, so okay, whatever. And then they just go to their new house, which was already purchased for them, I guess, or maybe God just made it up here and everyone never really thought about it being there. I don't know, it's not really explained, but it's not that important. And the angels are also unused to being in the physical world, because up in heaven they don't really have bodies and there aren't physical objects or anything, so Bethany in particular is kind of weirded out by having a body and is freaked out by all the objects and stuff that she can see around her. I mean trees? Everywhere trees? What the hell is this place? And about five pages in, it's mentioned that they're visited by a faceless, stupid mentor who they never get a name for, and he's just a guy who comes down from heaven, gives them advice and tells them like, hey, God wants you to start doing this, at least that's what Bethany claims that he's doing, because he's mentioned this one time on page five and then never comes up again throughout the rest of the series. He's never even mentioned again, so I'm really not sure what the point of that was. That feels like something that an editor would go through and say, hey, this never comes back, so why don't you just cut that out? It's unimportant and it saves a little bit of time. Now, for a couple of weeks after being brought down, Bethany and Gabriel and Ivy are all just kind of wandering around town observing humans, and apparently part of their mission parameters is that they're not supposed to interact with them too much. Okay, if that's the case, how are you supposed to help them? Like, later on they mentioned like you're not supposed to get into real relationships with humans, relationships with humans, and we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get there, because that is its own issues, but it would at least make sense if that was a rule, but in this it's like you can't interact with humans, well then, how are you supposed to help them? You know, if you were like a doctor or something useful like that, then you would have to, you know, talk with people and interact with them in order to help heal them, and in this case, like, okay, you're just trying to make this town better, how are you supposed to do that and then they just walk by the beach one day and while she's there, Beth meets this really cute boy whose name is Xavier or Egg Xavier. I've actually, I've met people who have been named that, who have pronounced it both ways so I'm not sure, but either way she meets him and she's just immediately infatuated with him, you know, they don't have to talk or get to know each other or anything, she's just instantly in love with him and from this point forward she's obsessed with him and I don't know why she is because you know, it's not like we read romance to see people connect or anything, she's just super into him and he's kind of into her and then that's it, that's the whole story from then on. And after this point while Bethany is thinking about how oh, I'm not supposed to interact with humans but she's also wondering, like, what is love? Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more, ha ha I made that joke, now let's move it out of the way but Bethany just thinks about love you know, I love all of humanity but what does it mean to love just a single person you know, to the point where you don't even care about the whole rest of the world as much as you care about them, what's that like and I just don't care I don't care and while they're introducing Gabe and Ivy they give them like really basic backstories and I mean they're not that they're not that interesting but they're there they're just, they were angels who've been around for thousands of years and Gabe was actually the one who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible which is kind of nuts and like when I heard that I was like, oh this is actually kind of interesting I wonder what'll happen with this and nothing, nothing happens with it, again it's, it never comes back up ever again like this dude killed thousands of people on the orders of God which would kind of imply that he is a hard ass and a stickler for rules which granted that is established as part of his personality and they keep with that throughout most of the series but they never do anything with that, the fact that he has such a nutty backstory, they never do anything with that so what was the point of having it? and then we obviously get a long ass description of what Bethany looks like and how she's just so plain but she's also impossibly gorgeous with no effort whatsoever on the other hand was nothing special just a plain old transition angel in my physical form I looked ethereal like my family except my eyes were as brown as river stones and my chestnut brown hair fell in loose waves down my back I thought that once I was recruited for an earth posting I'd be able to choose my own physical form but it didn't work that way I was created small, fine-boned and not especially tall with a heart-shaped face, pixie-like ears and skin that was milky pale whenever I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror I saw an eagerness that was missing from the faces of my siblings even when I tried I could never look as removed as Gabe and Ivy now this idea of just being obnoxiously beautiful all the time with no effort is obviously part of the fantasy like the teenage girls who this is aimed at are gonna be into that and like okay there's nothing wrong with having a fantasy like that it's, I'm not the target audience but it's fine if that's your thing but this is really fucking stupid and over the top and obnoxious like, oh my goodness and the thing is like I said Bethany is the supernatural half of this relationship in this one so I was thinking like okay maybe she will be the more interesting character because you know she's not just a regular person and around this time my hopes were dashed because even as an angel Bethany is plain and boring she doesn't have all that much personality like what is her personality like she loves Xavier whatever I'm probably going to be going back and forth between those she loves Xavier, she loves her siblings and she doesn't want other people to get hurt and that's really it you know she never really has anything that she wants for herself she never decides oh I want to be a doctor or anything like that she just she exists and we're supposed to be into her for that reason like the audience is supposed to love her for that reason and I just I just can't do that and after they've been in town for a little while the school year starts and Bethany just attends school because she's around 17 years old like she's actually she isn't an angel who's thousands of years old but she looks 17, she is actually 17 years old she was created around that long ago so okay again at least it makes sense that she would act kind of childish at times because she actually is so one point in this book's favor and while she's at school Gabriel is also going to school but he's there as the music teacher and again how are you supposed to help people at all in this situation like okay Bethany is there just existing almost as a teenager what really you could maybe make an argument for like oh he's a teacher he's helping to mold young minds and all that stuff which okay I could kind of see that but they don't really talk about it ever and again if you're not supposed to interact with humans all that much then how are you supposed to connect with them and help mold their minds in that case like these are the sort of things that you have to think about if you're gonna write a story like this and then Bethany describes the school though she's a movie executive from the 80's even in school uniform it wasn't difficult to distinguish the particular social groups I'd observed in the kingdom the music posse was made up of boys with shoulder length hair untidy strands falling over their eyes they carried instrument cases and had musical chords scrawled on their arms in black felt pen there was a small minority of goths who had set themselves apart by use of heavy eye makeup and spiky hairdos and I wondered how they got away with it surely it must contravene school regulations those who liked to think of themselves as artistic had accessorized the uniforms with berets or hats and colorful scarves some girls traveled in packs like a group of platinum blondes who crossed the road with their arms linked the academic types were easily identified they wore pristine uniforms with no alterations and carried the official school backpack they tended to walk with a missionary zeal heads down eager to reach the sanctity of the library I know that was already long but trust me it goes on it goes on even longer and the thing is that's not how teenagers act guys it's not that easy they're humans, they're not that stereotypical okay their social groups don't line up that nicely which it feels like it was written by a 40 year old man alexandra adernetto was around 16 when she wrote this like how does she not know better so bethanie on her way to class meets a girl named molly and her best friends because that's kind of just how fiction works apparently like the first person you ever interact with at a new place is just going to be your best friend and because of that they don't need to spend any time showing how they become friends or why they like each other or why they enjoy being around each other they're just friends from that point forward and uh bethanie is late to class so her teacher says hey you're late to class miss church and i learned bethanie's full name is bethanie church you named an angel you named your angel character you took your character who's from heaven who's a direct creation of god who's here to do god's will you took your angel character you named her church you named three of them church what's molly's last name pills just not even rudely he just tells him hey like don't be late to my class guys you're interrupting everybody and then when they sit down molly molly says this don't worry about belt she whispered seeing my look of surprise he's a total stiff bitter and twisted after his wife served the divorce papers the only thing that gets him going these days is his new convertible which he looks like a loser driving oh my god molly why are you such a bitch like it this dude is not even being that mean to you he's just he's just a teacher he's doing his job leave him alone and the thing is ah not bethany molly continues acting like that throughout the whole series like right after that the teacher asks her miss harrison I assume you are explaining to our new student the concept of covalent bonding and she says um not exactly mr. belt molly replied I don't want to bore her to death on her first day like oh my god am I supposed to like molly because I don't just those two little lines at the beginning I was like I really don't like this bitch and she continues acting like that throughout the whole rest of the series so then not long after this bethany runs into Xavier because apparently he goes to their school and her and molly both thirst over him because like he's so pretty he has his bright blue eyes and he's tall and athletic in everything is it just me or did the love interests like the male love interest in these always seem to have blue eyes like it seems weird I think once in a while they'd be like green or brown or something but they always seem to be icy blue specifically icy blue eyes I don't know why that was a thing but and it's mentioned that Xavier is the school captain now at this point I started to get a little confused because um the author alexandra adornetto is australian but when this book started off they don't specify where venus cove is so I had just sort of subconsciously assumed that it took place in the united states partially because a lot of stuff that I that I read takes place here and partially just cuz you know it's I guess it's just the ugly american thing to do assume the whole world revolves around us and when they said school captain like we don't have that here like that's a thing that's really only in the british dominion or former british dominion so places like the united kingdom australia canada they have that and so I just us and you know knowing the author was australian I just assumed like oh okay I guess it was in australia okay that was that was my mistake but the thing is they um that the author doesn't seem to have known which place she wanted to be in because she she drops details like that which implies in australia but then she drops some that implied in the united states as well like I mentioned before the big dance at the end of the year they call it prom which is an american name they don't call it that in australia or anywhere else in the british dominion for that matter they wear school uniforms even though it's a public school which is kind of the norm in australia and other places now granted in the united states there are a couple of public schools which will make you wear uniforms so this doesn't automatically mean it's not in the us but it's pretty rare for that to happen and then there's also like a train that goes from their small town to the city like apparently the public transport actually works there which is definitely not how it is in the united states it's mentioned that Xavier is on the rugby team and rugby is just not a big sport here like at all i mean american football is kind of similar and actually in the second and third books they changed it so that he is on the football team but the point is in this beginning one he's on the rugby team which just isn't that big here and it's mentioned that some people have a southern draw which usually is used to describe people from the southern united states who have that accent so implies it's here and then at one point it's mentioned that you have to be 21 years old to buy beer whereas in australia the drinking age is 18 so there's so many things that were pulling me in so many different directions and i was just very confused about where this place was supposed to be and i guess it's not that big a deal but it did still bother me and anyways in the second book they do confirm that it's in the united states specifically it's in georgia so there all i'm saying is that if you're gonna write a story that takes place somewhere where you don't live and that you're not that familiar with do a little bit of research first you know so you catch things like that and then you can iron them over these details would be very easy to have changed so anyways bethenny finds out from molly that zavier's old girlfriend whose name is emily story takes place emily died in a house fire and now zavier is super sad and hasn't dated anyone since then which i guess that's another part of the fantasy because bethenny immediately thinks ooh i can fix him i can make him better i i i all he needs is some love and he'll instantly get over his depression and fears of abandonment let that's how that works uh bethenny goes to gym class where it's revealed that angels don't sweat and they have infinite energy because they're perfect but at the same time their bodies are still mortal uh like they still need to eat food and stuff and i i don't believe they ever directly say but it is implied that if they die in their body then like their body will die but their angel form will just go back to heaven when that happens so i i i don't know it feels that feels contradictory to me it feels like they wouldn't need to eat or anything in that scenario but whatever whatever whatever and anyways bethenny you know makes friends and gabriel is like upset with her because of it and he says blending in is one thing but do you realize that friends require time and energy said gabriel they want to bond and okay i've said it more than once but like how are you supposed to help people if you can't really interact with them and if you're afraid of spending time and energy interacting with humans how the hell are you supposed to help them at all i okay yeah so molly runs into bethenny and gabriel while they're out in the town and molly starts crushing on gabriel immediately which is kind of gross because he's a teacher at her school what why is that such a common fucking plot points in these stupid shitty young adult romance novel oh my god it's so creepy guys i had a teacher that did that when i was in high school it's creepy can we stop for once just once i'd like to read this and go yeah there's no inappropriate student-teacher relationships here like please granted gabriel is not interested in her but still they it's there and it continues coming up throughout the rest of the series like we'll we'll talk about it more in more detail later but whatever whatever so bethenny dreams that while she's asleep zavier comes into her room and kisses her and i think it's a dream but it seems real it doesn't matter because this this leads nowhere they have a neighbor who pops in to say hello and gives them food and they spend several pages getting to know her and this leads nowhere in fact that neighbor never shows up again um bethenny goes to a fortune teller and has like her palms read and the lady gives her a bad fortune and she's like oh you have no life line i don't understand this could not be good for you and this this leads nowhere like there's so many subplots like that that just they have no point which kind of ties into my theory that the author thought it was too short and so just threw some stuff in there without really thinking about how how it would tie in and if you want proof of how much it doesn't tie in i'm mainly going to be skipping over a lot of these subplots in all three books and you're not really going to notice so Xavier and bethenny meet and they start talking with one another and they spend a little more time together and they seem to be getting into each other like this part of the book like sure it could be a lot worse i like these bits of dialogue almost sound like something humans could say uh bethenny likes Xavier because he's kind he's smart uh he has a lot of younger siblings and he's a very good brother to them and so in that regard yeah it is better than other romance where they like fallen for example the main character lucinda liked daniel just because she did you know like there's literally never a reason given even when people ask her like why do you love him she's she says well i just do you know so like this is better than that at least um but at the same time like why does Xavier like bethenny you know like she's pretty sure but beyond that she what does she do what personality does she have do they have any hobbies in common is he attracted to the way she's like super kind and does nice things for other people because she doesn't really that much like what what does what does this lead to why the only reason you like her is because she's the lead that's all that's the only reason and it's especially stupid because later on Xavier just describes her as being interesting like he says hey you're interesting she says there's nothing interesting about me and he says i disagree even your reaction to being called interesting is interesting like why what is it about this girl that you find attractive that you find neat okay okay okay so throughout all of this Molly is just obsessed with finding a prom date and I do mean obsessed she brings it up on page 40 124 page 44 page 299 and a couple of other times like she just constantly is constantly like oh I need attention and validation from boys like there's nothing I like about my I hate Molly so much now after a little while like after bethenny and Xavier have been together for a couple of weeks I think she actually does decide to just let him know that she's an angel and so like on the beach one night she shows him like hey I don't leave footprints when I'm walking in the sand and he's like wait how you doing that and then she shows off her wings and he's like whoa you're an angel that's that's really weird but I'm okay with it and I'll be honest this is one of the better parts of the of the series because it doesn't really waste time you know like with a lot of these types of stories it would be something like oh she has to keep this a secret or bad things will happen and then like that's the main crux of the conflict I guess is her just trying to keep this part of herself hidden from her boyfriend and if he ever finds out bad things will happen and then he finds out and like they break up for 50 pages or whatever and then he decides you know what I don't actually care what you are because I love you something like that you know like just just wasting no time with it so I'm okay with this but at the same time Bethany was told that she cannot tell humans what she is or she'll get in trouble and then Gabriel finds out about it and he's like I'm really pissed I'm gonna have to tell the other angels and they tells the other angels and they think it over for a little while and they're like now you're fine so Bethany just gets let off and she's not in trouble anymore great so by this point we're over halfway through the book and I'm not joking like this next bit is page 260 and it's less than 500 pages so we're more than halfway through and they introduce a new character named Jake now Jake is English he's a new guy at their school he just came in he's a bad boy and he likes poetry so basically just think Harry Styles in after or whatever he was called in the movie version like you know Voldemort's nephew guy with all the tattoos and he liked to read because I don't know the author thinks that's attractive which I mean it is to be fair but you know just think of him and change very little and everyone really likes him as soon as he shows up which I just have to wonder why because he's just kind of rude to everyone and acts like he's above them occasionally people will ask him for help with things and he'll continue being rude as well so he's not very helpful he doesn't really do anything that other people would be interested in or be or fine fine fun excuse me he sexually harasses a couple of people including his teacher at one point and his teacher seems into it which is really weird and uncomfortable and a lot of time is spent on him at this section of the book is the thing to do anything until later he pops up like a hundred pages from the end again and he that's when he becomes more important but throughout this whole segment he's not doing anything he's just there it's just a bunch of time spent on this character who we know nothing about and we don't like him and he doesn't have any mystery or intrigue to him he's just there and they spend a lot of time on it and it's boring so Bethany goes with her friends to go shopping for prom dresses which like okay sure that's a normal thing that girls do and Molly starts asking about her and Xavier's sex life sorry she said you just surprised me I mean well I just thought you would have but you've done other stuff yeah sure we go for walks hold hands share lunch my god Beth how old are you do I have to spell everything out for you she narrowed her eyes wait have you even seen it seen what I exploded you know she said emphatically it she gestured in the vicinity of her groin until I finally understood her meaning oh I exclaimed I'd never do anything like that well hasn't he hinted that he wants more no I said indignantly Xavier doesn't care about stuff like that that's what they all say at first Molly said cynically just give it some time great as Xavier is all guys want the same thing okay first of all Molly you are prying a lot and you're being very judgmental so you're kind of being a bitch about this and I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over that Molly is a bitch but she really is and Bethany and Xavier they haven't done anything sexual at this point and after this Bethany does bring it up with Xavier and he's like yeah it's fine it's whatever because they just decide they're gonna wait until they get the courage I guess because they're already thinking about okay sure we're not gonna think too hard about this because the authors clearly didn't the author editor publishers none of them did but I do just want to point out that yes this is a huge part of the fantasy as well that this dude really wants to have sex with you but he also respects you enough to never ever bring it up until you do like you know he doesn't have his own desires or anything and the thing about this is that this might have been fine if it led somewhere like you know if there was some sort of conflict that arose of this like maybe Xavier did want to have sex with her and he was a little too pushy with it like that would be an ass hole move but at least it would bring conflict up or maybe it was the other way around maybe Bethany suddenly decides you know what yeah I'm really horny and I want to have sex with my human boyfriend but he's more uncomfortable with it and is kind of pushing her away like that would be there would be some conflict there you know it would be characters who want different things and they have to struggle with one another until they either come to a compromise or one of them loses or something like that and this whole book has had no conflict so far have you realized that yet like when Bethany falls in love with this dude she doesn't need to do anything to attract him or get him out of his shell or anything like that they're just they meet and then they're together Bethany doesn't have trouble fitting in at the school they just meet and they're together they're supposed to be helping save the world and make it better for everybody but they just aren't they just aren't doing anything like there's no conflict in any of this at all so far it takes about 350 pages before a conflict arises and it's the dumbest fucking conflict of all time so basically Xavier is at his rugby practice and he gets a nasty tackle and he's not too badly hurt but he does get a concussion and he has to stay in the hospital to be examined for a couple of days just make sure nothing too bad happened and because of his stay in the hospital it's not life threatening again remember it's not life threatening he'll be fine but because of his stay in the hospital he can't go to prom with Bethany and that's the big conflict that sets up everything else that happens in the book I have felt more thrills washing my hands and the thing is I I have personal beef with this bit because weirdly enough I was in this situation myself when I was 18 years old my dates of my senior prom could not come with me because she was in the hospital like the circumstances were a bit different but you know similar idea and so I just went with my friends and did it suck? yeah like I felt a little bit of sympathy for Bethany at first that does suck but life goes on even at the time I was thinking yeah it'll be alright we'll get past this life continues and lo and behold however many years later I don't even remember but 6? oh shit I'm old but it's this many years later and I'm still here when Bethany was still whining about it for page after page after page I was thinking ok grow the fuck up girl like I know you're 17 years old but grow the fuck up like the one positive I can say about Bethany being so young is that she's not like a thousand year old angel demon supernatural creature whatever that's creeping on a 17 year old boy you know Twilight and stuff do that and I find it I find it unpleasant so at least in this they're both age appropriate for each other what? I never statutory raped anyone before so anyways Jake asks Bethany to prom instead he's like hey I heard your boyfriends in trouble like I could take you instead and he actually sexually harasses her a bit while doing this like he gets too close to her and puts his hands around her shoulders and stuff it's kinda creepy bro but she agrees to go with him because she's stupid you know this seriously this guy is about as trustworthy as dirty needles in a parking lot alright so from this point forward we have like the actual conflict of the book and I'm just gonna roll right through it because the book kinda rolls right through it like they go to prom while they're there Bethany is having decent enough time she's like you know what Jake is a nice guy I wish I was here with Xavier instead but you know Jake is he's alright and then he starts talking and he reveals that you know she's an angel and she's like what how do you know that and it's because Jake is a demon actually and he's like you're gonna be mine soon she's like no and they run off and she stays away from him and then in order to lure her out Jake kills Tayla whose Tayla is one of the girls that Bethany is apparently friends with like I when it said Tayla's dead I actually didn't even realize who that was at first because she's mentioned maybe twice before this point um anyways Bethany is like I can't let him kill anybody else so she agrees to go with him and basically gets kidnapped and he sets up a ritual he's about to drag her down to hell and then Gabriel appears and vanishes him to hell by stabbing him with a sword and then Jake hints that he'll be back now like I said that's fast all of this almost 500 page book all of that is like 80 pages you know there's no time for investment you know to get invested in the story and think like oh man if this if they don't do this what's going to happen with Bethany is she gonna get hurt is Xavier gonna get hurt like there's no time for any of that uh there's no time for character development you know for the people to go through struggles and come out differently or be faced with difficult questions about what kind of person they want to be anything like that uh there's no time for like the back and forth that usually accompanies pretty much any sort of plot really you know like if we're talking a mystery for example the back and forth would be okay we know that there was this crime or something that was committed and they're trying to gather clues so like okay we'll gather this clue and investigate and then we'll go to this clue oh it's a dead end okay let's go somewhere else and you know like stories have back and forth like that and this doesn't it's just bad guys here bad guy kidnaps bad guys gone and that's it and I also want to point out that even though Bethany is the main character and even though she's the supernatural love interest here and even though she's supposed to have some of these kind of neat powers that Xavier doesn't she's still the damsel in distress you know she still doesn't really get to do anything or save the day even though this is her story she just gets kidnapped and it gets saved by two men and I guess that's kind of sexist but I mean I don't want to make an unnecessary accusation of that and I don't really feel like getting into that topic at the moment but it does feel that way you know if the shoe fits and yeah anyways Jake will be back onto book two Hades so as I said earlier Hades is the best one because it is the only one with conflict and plus it's about 15% shorter than the last one like they trimmed it down quite a bit both this one and the last one like I'll give them credit for that like they seem to have realized ok Halo it really did drag for a while so Hades in heaven will trim it down so that's good and the plot to this one is basically that Bethany gets dragged down to hell by Jake and she has to try and escape and ok that sounds good on paper at least like the character wants something she wants to escape there's another character the villain who wants something different they want to prevent them from reaching that goal and so they have to fight against each other you know not physically fight in this case but there's a struggle there there is conflict there is a story you know but it's still pretty bad as we'll get into but at least an attempt was made so this one starts off about six months after the end of Halo now that is a small detail but I actually kind of like it because it makes sense that Bethany and Xavier could be so attached to one another if they've actually been together for a long period of time you know we don't see all that much when their relationship is developing so it's still not a good relationship but there's a lot of other books and stuff I've read where it's the same you know we still don't see much with their relationship or anything like that but they've known each other for like a week and they still are in love and they'll die for each other whereas in this they've been together for a fair amount of time so yeah it makes sense that they could form this attachment so okay I like that and apparently off screen Bethany and Gabriel and Ivy made the town of Venus Cove amazing again over the past year the influence of my family had spread and transformed Venus Cove into a model town the church congregation had tripled in numbers charity missions had more volunteers than they could handle and the limited incidents of crime were so few and far between that the sheriff was forced to find other things to occupy his time nowadays the only disputes that happened were minor like drivers arguing over who saw a parking lot first but that was just human nature it couldn't be changed and it wasn't our job to try and change it okay one again you're pointing out that hey hey everything is great here there's no struggle or conflict whatsoever which like I mean if you're living in that situation in real life then yeah that's a good thing but it's just not fun to read about you know and another question is like how did this happen what did you do why is the church congregation tripling in numbers how did you do that and why is it such a big deal like they never mention them or rather they mention once or twice that they do some like volunteer charity work which is great and all but how how does that alone suddenly make the town better like did you fix poverty by doing that I don't think you did that feels like more of a band-aid to cover a bigger issue but I guess that's not the point of the story so let's just move on so Bethany and Xavier and all their friends and everything go to a Halloween party at an abandoned mansion which is called the Boo Radley house because Alexandra Adornado has no imagination and uh Bethany is also dressed up as an angel for Halloween which is kind of funny I'll admit one of Bethany's friends brings out a Ouija board and they decide okay let's contact spirits let's have a seance which um that seems like a dumb idea for Bethany to do because she knows better and she does think that but then she goes through with it anyways and honestly a character being dumb and getting themselves into trouble is a fine way to start off a story I guess it's just when it happens later on it starts to get annoying but yeah the psoas spirits goes into the board and warns them of evil and danger and all that and they're kind of nervous and Molly freaks out kicks the board and that sets the spirit free and I just want to keep that in mind like she sets the spirit free which it turns out to be Jake pretty soon after this but Molly sets it free meaning that everything that happens after this is Molly's fault and no one ever brings that up no one's ever like you know Molly you caused this issue I think you should help us fix it or anything like that she's just like oops tee he I'm not like other girls and then they never bring it up up again and they're just hit her and Beth are still best friends it's okay okay yeah so they leave and Molly just her date that was with her there just some random guy named Ryan is high so he can't drive her back and she's like are you high and he says Ryan clarified I believe the term is greened out that no one talks like that nobody talks like this oh my god so Jake comes back he opens a portal which looks like a literal highway to hell which is again that's kind of funny I kind of like that idea and then he comes out on his motorcycle because remember bad boys ride motorcycles and then he grabs Bethany and drags her down to hell and now she's trapped like she can't open a portal or anything and now she's trapped in hell or Hades as they often call it I'm not sure why they call it that because Hades was a Greek god he was he has nothing to do with Christian mythology but um okay not a not a huge issue I suppose and but the bigger issue is that hell is a hotel and a nightclub like that that's what that's what's in hell is Bethany is not being tortured in a pit of flame or anything until she agrees to be Jake's lover like she's just staying in a hotel which happens to be I mean it's away from all her friends and family so it makes sense she wanted to escape but it really doesn't seem that nasty and then she goes to like a nightclub and she's thinking oh this is so terrible these people are dancing and doing things of a sexual nature because as we all know sex is bad it's not just a thing that people do with each other sometimes it's bad like I don't mind some religious symbolism or religious ideas being put into books especially books like these that deal with obviously such heavy religious themes but you don't have to beat us over the head with your morality like I find that annoying and based like I said Jake wants Bethany as his girlfriend and he also just wants to piss off heaven like they want to piss off God and all that so just that's his whole motivation for all of us and they try to make hell seem a little bit more dangerous because Bethany like goes to this one area which is hidden away from the rest of hell and that is like you know the more medieval torture devices where the souls of bad people are tortured for all eternity you know that sort of thing which is fine I guess like that does make hell seem a little bit worse but then Jake says you're not in Kansas anymore which is like the most pathetic attempt at a joke ever and look to make things even worse like you know with the medieval torture everything excuse me it seems like okay maybe hell will be a little bit worse but not for long because you see there's a demon named Tuck and Tuck is a servant of Jake so he's basically there to lead Bethany around and show her what's going on in hell and keep an eye on her that sort of thing and he shows her this magic river and Bethany drinks from it and it gives her the ability to think really hard about her friends and then she can see them wherever they are and whatever they're doing like she can't interact with them but she can observe them and there's no limits to this like she can just whenever she wants like close her eyes oh that's what Xavier's doing okay and because of that we spend around a third of the book with Bethany just watching others and um that's not very interesting you know like this um this idea that she's trapped in hell and doesn't know what other people are up to that could work as a tension builder and as a oh I wonder if my friends are I'm sure they're working towards a way to get me here but I don't know what they're doing or if they're okay maybe they came down here already and they got caught by security or something like that like you could maybe do something like that but the fact that she's able to see them and see okay they're doing alright and they are coming down to help me that removes most of the tension for one and for another it makes Bethany a passive observer in her own fucking book like aren't you the main character in this situation shouldn't you be focusing on Bethany trying to escape on her own of her own intelligence using her own talents that sort of thing now Bethany also has another demon servant because you know when I think like the worst most torturous experience imaginable I think of myself having multiple servants and assistants that can help me do whatever I want but you know she has another demon servant who is Hannah her name is Hannah and she's not actually a demon in the regular sense she's a dead soul like a person who died and was evil so she went to hell and her and Bethany are kind of nice to each other they get a little bit of a friendship going and they talk about Hannah's life and Bethany's life you know they're just talking with each other and it takes like five pages before Hannah stops dancing around the subject and she just gets to the point about who she is and what happened when she was alive Hannah leaned back inside I hardly know where to begin I haven't spoken about my old life in such a long time start wherever you like I prompted I'll begin then with book involved I need an adult that is the most insane opener to a character monologuing about their backstory that I have ever fucking read I think like that was nuts I when I first read that I had to put the book down for like 10 minutes and mentally prepare myself for whatever was about to come because this oh my god I I'm just gonna go over her backstory all at once and then we're gonna circle back and go over all the little issues I had with it because there's a there's a fair number of them so basically Hannah lived in Germany during the 1930s which was you know obviously an unpleasant time to be alive there and she was a kid she said she was 17 years old in 1933 and she joined Hitler Youth and then she later got a job at Buchenwald which was a concentration camp if you were unaware and while she was there one of her old neighbors that she was friends with when she was kid it was a little Jewish girl named Esther gets taken there as a prisoner and she gets really sick and Hannah's thinking like oh man she's gonna die I don't I wish I could help her but there's nothing I can do and then Jake appears and he's like hey I can save your friend but you have to sell me your soul and Hannah agrees to do it and he keeps his end of the bargain Esther does get healthy again but then that doesn't save her she gets killed in the gas chambers not long after so the first big problem here is that this gets really dark out of nowhere and then it gets lighthearted again like I was saying this whole series so far has mostly been like oh there's a puppy caught in a tree this is the worst thing that's ever happened like it's lighthearted you know you don't suddenly have dismembered children and rape and all that out of nowhere if you're gonna do something dark like that you have to either ease into it or just have it be super dark from the beginning and just bringing up the holocaust out of nowhere and then immediately dropping it afterwards what were you thinking like okay and number two the smaller issue in my mind are the issues with the history there's a lot of errors there like for starters Hannah worked at Buchenwald right after the 1933 election or at least the way it's written it sounds like it was right after the 1933 election the problem is that Buchenwald did not open until 1937 so that's already a problem another issue is that Hannah could not have joined Hitler Youth because there weren't any girls in Hitler Youth that's us that was a boys club organization I guess it would be a better word girls had an equivalent which was called the League of German Maidens or the Bund Deutsche Mädel but it was separate because Nazis were super big on traditional gender roles Hitler Youth was about learning how to be manly and tough and all that whereas the League of German Maidens was about learning how to be a proper mother and oh look you know how to cook and make clothes and stuff and also if if she was working at Buchenwald and she was 17 in 1933 and that means by the time Buchenwald opened she would have been at least 21 so she would be too old to be in either of the youth movements anyways and then after that Buchenwald was a concentration camp it wasn't a death camp like they didn't have gas chambers there not to say people didn't die there many thousands did but they died from stuff like not having enough food and not having proper medical care or in some cases being subject to horrible medical experiments and sometimes just being abused by the guards like I'm not trying to defend Buchenwald by any means it was a horrible atrocity but it it wasn't a death camp you know death camps had gas chambers like Auschwitz and Treblinka those had gas chambers but Buchenwald did not now I think that if you're gonna bring up like how evil Jake is and how evil demons are and stuff like that then using the holocaust as a subject matter is fine like that's some of the most evil shit humanity's ever done I think if you're gonna try and drive the point home yeah that's good but get the facts right you know like a lot of people died in this and if you're gonna use them as fodder for your shitty angel romance novel like you owe it to them to at least google some shit because this kind of feels like it really does feel like Alexandra Adornetto just googled concentration camps grabbed the first one that popped up did no further research and then just put everything in there and nobody fact-checked her which I don't know I'm not mad I'm just disappointed so with that out of the way so Jake and Bethany continue interacting a little she makes it clear how much she hates him and he says that he wants to have sex with her but she keeps saying no which is kind of surprising I mean you know she's in hell she's trapped out there there's nowhere she can escape I figure that the implication was spoken the implication that things might go wrong for her if she refuses to sleep with me no not that things are gonna go wrong for her but she's thinking that they will we also learned that Jake is no regular demon he's one of the originals meaning he was one of the angels that originally rebelled against God and was cast down into hell aren't they all originals though like isn't that how demons were created like okay that's how it worked in the Bible certainly and if you want to change up the mythology for this that's fine but you have to explain a little bit more like if that's the case where do other demons come from are they just created by Lucifer I would assume but there's nothing explained about it so what am I supposed to do and throughout all of this they keep showing little chunks where they're on earth and I don't mean like one or two page chunks I mean they'll spend like three chapters just showing what's going on on earth and Bethany is just a passive observer watching stuff and I'll show some other stuff in hell and then bunch of stuff on earth I'm just gonna go over all the earth stuff at once right now so Xavier and company are searching for a way to open a portal so that they can get down to hell and rescue Bethany makes sense they hear about a convent full of possessed nuns somewhere in Tennessee so they go out there and they just help all the nuns and they they get the devil out of them so they're no longer in trouble and while they're out there Molly tries really hard to jump Gabriel's bones like she tells him he actually doesn't have feelings but she knows that she does then she forcibly kisses him but he's just not interested like she can't take no for an answer it looks kind of pathetic really like sure I'm unrequited love that that can work fine like that can be dramatic it can be tragic it can be funny in some cases but it needs to be less annoying it needs to be less creepy it needs to be with a better character like Molly's not like she's not a likeable character I don't know much about her other than she's obsessive over boys and make up and stuff like a stereotypical girly girl and she's rude to everyone she's mean she causes trouble like I said she's the reason Bethany got stuck in hell and like if she had been a better character maybe this could have worked to be like tragic or whatever but right now no it's just really stupid and annoying and I hate it to take in an attempt to prevent them from attempting to rescue Bethany he actually takes some of Bethany's feathers which have fallen off her wings and he goes up to earth and he talks to them but the thing is he doesn't go to earth as himself he goes dressed as Diego who was another kid they went to school with who just kind of he's never really mentioned before this or after so I don't know why he bothered going in a different body and this that stood out to me Jake is white and Diego is pretty obviously Hispanic so if Jake is pretending to be him isn't that kind of like wearing blackface so yeah he's there for a little while and he's talking to Xavier and Molly and he actually pretends to be Diego for a few minutes and it takes them forever to pick up on oh that's actually Jake yeah this guy just realized in our hotel room I guess that's not the normal human that we went to school with that might be the demon that we all know exists and like it just makes them look really stupid and again it's that same problem of spending forever to do anything you know it's not just the descriptions go on and on it's like the conversations go in dumb little circles for a while and then something will happen and like it's just it's really stupid and annoying but basically he's there for a minute he shows them the feather that he took from Bethany and he tells them oh yeah she's dead sorry no need to come looking for her because you know I'm the villain you can trust me and then while he's there for a minute Xavier's angry is about to attack him and Jake's like bring it on kid and then Gabriel busts down the door and he's like ha I could smell you you're Jake we're gonna kill you now and then Jake runs off and the thing is Jake seems surprised that they were able to find him there but like he should know that his demon aura they can sense that like dude why didn't you think of that you haven't thought of the smell you bitch and not long after this Jake possesses Xavier while he's driving a car and he drives it like towards the edge of a cliff while Bethany is watching and she's like no no please don't kill my boyfriend I'll do anything you want and then basically Jake says you have to have sex with me and I'll leave Xavier alone and Bethany agrees which is kind of gross but it's also like supposed to be gross you know it's supposed to be the villain essentially raping Bethany which is you know unpleasant but again this is a little darker than you've had up until this point which is just a weird tonal whiplash and then Jake says that the purpose of sex is pleasure not procreation Jake do you know what sex is? so about 30 pages before the end of the book the Archangel Michael just decides to come down visit Xavier and Gabriel and all the rest and he gives them a device to open portals how convenient you know it's just they didn't have to work on anything to find a way to open the portal anymore the earlier stuff they did was a waste of time and now they don't have to actually struggle or sacrifice or anything in order to get down to hell so what was the point of all that other stuff if we're just gonna have this day of sex mocking to pop out of nowhere you might as well have had Bethany never watch her friends and not know anything about what's going on and then they just suddenly pop up later like that would make about as much sense but anyways they go to hell Gabriel stabs Jake and this time kills him for good or so we're told and Bethany is rescued because again she's the main character but she's still the damsel in distress and then again remember all of this is in less than 30 pages so just like before there's no time to like get invested or anything and then they go home and they're just happy to be alive and all that Xavier and Bethany and Molly and all them graduate high school and then Xavier right after the graduate right after the graduation ceremony he drives Bethany over to their church and he's like hey let's get married and he says like we're not gonna tell anybody else about it until afterwards like I talked to the priest he's on he's on board with it like what do you say we're both 18 let's do it yeah what could go wrong you know angels and humans are forbidden to be together like what could go wrong but Bethany agrees to it and they're just like okay and that's where book 2 ends okay so this one this one had potential like I said a character being trapped in hell trying to escape I think that's a I think that's a fine idea you could do a lot with that but everything was too easy you know like Jake never actually forces Bethany to do anything which is kind of a blessing because I don't have to read about that shit I'm sure it would not be handled very well but nonetheless like if hell had really been that terrible at least it would have felt urgent that they had to escape so even when they were able to escape that easy or rather when Beth was able to escape that easy it wouldn't have seemed like so pointless you know and then like I said at the end the Archangel Michael just sort of gave him a device so they can open portals and go back and real easy they didn't have to give anything up they never had to make any sacrifices and because Bethany can just watch what's going on on the surface the readers already know everything you know we know every obstacle and so everything is on easy mode for the characters and for us and the sad part is that despite all of that it's still better than the other two books so the final book is called Heaven and I'm probably going to breeze through this one relatively quickly like it's a bit simpler than the others like you might notice there's fewer tabs in this one than in the others that doesn't mean that like I found less stuff wrong with it it really just means that there are a lot of points that like I said earlier a lot of points that were just kind of boring or bad in the same ways as earlier books and I didn't want to repeat myself too much and there were a few bits that I was like maybe I could comment on this but it's really small and I don't care enough to actually talk about it so you know I'll breeze through this one quicker I think and the thing is this one has like eight different storylines and none of them are related to one another you know that they're all very straightforward they don't feed into one another or affect each other in any way none of them have any twists or turns or downtime so we really get to know the characters or so that we have time to like build up towards any sort of big events it or who am I kidding this is all downtime nothing fucking happens here so this one starts with Bethany and Xavier getting married and before the actual ceremony they notice that like the earth is shaking and clouds are covering the sun and they just think that I go that's weird and keep going through with it like that seems like a sign that you shouldn't be doing this girl but they go through with it and they mention that the church they're getting married in is called St. Mark's and that it was built by European colonists just after the Civil War which is a very odd way of wording it like at that point the United States was a sovereign nation so Europeans coming over would be more like immigrants than colonists to that point like it's just a very odd line and it really stuck out to me okay so their marriage goes through without a hitch and then immediately afterwards an angel comes down like a special angel called a reaper he comes down and he's like you shouldn't have done this and then he kills the priest and then takes his soul up to heaven and he tells him yeah the priest's intentions were pure so he'll go to heaven but we'll deal with you two later you're both dead like he threatens them very in a very straight forward manner and my question is like okay if the priest didn't do anything or if he didn't do anything wrong I should say why did you kill him then like there was no sin involved and like even in the Old Testament God really only killed sinners you know he didn't kill innocent people like and in the New Testament and after that it's generally agreed that God doesn't really kill people himself he just like lets them do their thing and if they're bad then they go to hell after they die and like I this is so odd like there's so many deviations from Christian theology but at the same time oh my kidding I don't give a shit and for that matter if the priest if only his earthly life is over and so it's not that big a deal because you know oh he gets to go to heaven and have a party for the rest of eternity then is any death really that scary or bad then like you know if Xavier really had died in that car crash when Jake was going to throw him off a cliff wouldn't he have just gone to heaven and then Bethany would see him again after she escaped one day eventually maybe I okay sure and Gabriel and Ivy are really mad about this and Gabriel straight up comes out and says that Bethany is not just just read you do not experience emotion Bethany you wallow in it you are controlled by it and everything you have done is based entirely on self interest just because you don't understand love doesn't make it wrong this isn't about love anymore this is about obedience and responsibility two concepts you will do not appear to understand now the thing is Gabriel is treated like he's being a hard ass for doing this but he's completely right everything Bethany has done has been for her own self interest her own desire she hasn't done anything to complete her mission as far as we've seen her mission to make the world a better place what has she done with that all she's doing is being obsessed with Xavier and then I mean in the second book it makes sense that she would be acting in her own self interest cause she's in hell but like other than that she's nothing to help anyone else throughout this entire series she's just been whiny and controlled completely like Gabriel says by her emotions she selfish she hurts others and she never does anything to make up for it so they need to go into hiding for a while and so Bethany and Xavier go to a cabin way out in the middle of nowhere that Gabriel and Ivy found for them and they're mostly alone for a couple of weeks while they're there and it comes out that it's apparently a stolen cabin which seems like a dick move but alright like other people that belongs to somebody else and they're just staying there but ok whatever and despite the fact that they're married they do not have sex because they think that maybe heaven will be merciful with them if their marriage isn't consummated sure I can see the logic there that makes sense and then the evil angels who are after them find them again and so they run off and they decide to continue hiding out by going to college in Mississippi ok but like if their angels can't they see everything if they're in heaven can't they just observe the earth and see everything that's ever going on how are they able to hide from them maybe if the angels didn't have stuff that could open portals to anywhere whenever they wanted it would seem a little bit more fallible and it would make sense that you could hide from them but in this they seem like these god like beings that can do whatever the hell they want so it just seems weird to have this on one hand oh they're crazy powerful and can hurt us and we can never fight back or anything and on the other hand oh we can easily hide from them all we have to do is go to another state so while they're in Mississippi at their new college at their new home they take on new identities and so rather than being Bethany and Xavier they are Ford and Lori McGraw they're not married they're pretending to be siblings why like the thing is they're in a relationship with one another so like if they get caught being intimate or something and people think they're siblings that's gonna draw attention to them and the whole point of this is to not draw attention to themselves so why not just give them the same last name they're like oh they're married just say they're one of those weird Christian conservative couples who get married when they're 18 because they're really horny and just wanted to have sex and then they have four kids and they're divorced by the time they're 25 just say they're one of those couples they exist the thing is that does happen they do get caught being intimate together and another girl sees them and tries to run off and tell but then Bethany catches her and using her angel powers she removes her memories I didn't know she could do that apparently Bethany can remove people's memories that's um that's a thing that happens but yeah for the most part all of their time at this college in Mississippi is just spent with them going to classes and meeting these new friends which we don't care about and they don't seem to really care about that much and they never pop up again after this so it's really just a waste of a couple hundred pages stop! oh my god I don't care at this point you could cut most of the major plot points in this entire series down to a pamphlet like you could just put it in a little stack at a doctor's office and people would pick it up and read it while they're waiting and they would get about the same amount out of it that I'm getting out of it so after Xavier and Bethany have been at college for a while Molly shows up with a new boyfriend engaged to be married despite the fact that they've only been apart from one another for like three months so she's known that guy maybe that length of time and oh also throughout all of this Xavier has not talked to any of his family so he just kind of walked out on him one day and they don't know what happens so that's you know that's that's shitty and the characters don't spend that much time talking about it or thinking about it or contemplating the consequences of their actions because they're kind of terrible people and anyways Molly shows up with her new boyfriend and much like the earth stuff in the last book it just kind of deals this in little chunks like he'll be a little bit right here and then a little bit near the end so I'll just deal with it all at once basically this dude is like overly controlling and kind of abusive and he seems extremely religious like he's in a cult and at one point he I don't know Bethany comments on him saying like hey you can't have your own church and he's like what it's just a different interpretation of the Bible and she's like you can't interpret the Bible the Bible is God's word Bethany if you think that people cannot interpret the Bible you blatantly do not understand how the Bible works like you don't understand the linguistics of it because it's been translated into a bunch of different versions and some of those versions can be quite a bit different from one another depending on the exact wording of it you blatantly don't understand theology because that's basically how all theology works people argue about shit all the time and you blatantly don't understand history because why do you think the Protestant Reformation happened or a bunch of other shit before that but like that's the big one people interpret it differently that's just how it works like if you're going to say that it's impossible to interpret the Bible in any different way other than insert religious denomination here then I just don't like you so anyways while they're trying to convince Molly to leave this dude Gabriel comes up to her and he says like very stoically and robotically like you know you said I don't have feelings for you or you said I have feelings for you and I claimed I don't but like maybe I do I don't know and like they don't even kiss or anything or even really confirm that Gabriel does in fact like have romantic feelings towards her which is kind of good because it would be creepy if he did remember this guy is way older than her and he was her teacher for a while so this is weird and then Molly leaves her boyfriend and that's it I just saved you about 30 to 40 pages spread throughout this whole book and there's a couple of other subplots like that and like I said I'm mainly going to ignore them and you're not going to notice so eventually the evil angels attack their school and during the attack they actually kill a couple of innocents which okay again these angels are supposedly like doing the work of God but they're killing innocents who haven't sinned that feels like they're breaking the sixth commandment you know thou shalt not kill but what do I know and then Xavier is killed as well during the fighting but because angels have amazing magical healing powers they manage to heal him they bring him back like he dies for a brief moment and they bring him right back and they're like oh that's super great but it turns out that he was possessed like while he was dead his body was empty and so Lucifer was able to come into his body and possess him now I should mention that Lucifer was in the last book a bit but I just left him out and like I said you didn't notice because he was a very pointless character he wasn't that interesting he wasn't fun he was just there now they try and exorcise Lucifer from Xavier's body for a little while and it doesn't work and then eventually they get Lucifer to agree to something and he says okay I will leave his body willingly if Gabriel will let me cut off his wings and the thing is that sounds terrible because when you get your wings cut off you lose all your angelic powers you become a human sort of the thing is like it won't kill him and they will grow back eventually like it will take a couple hundred years and Gabriel will just be wandering the earth that whole time but they will grow back and I'm just thinking like the characters are treating it like he's going to die he's thinking no you can't do it Gabriel well you won't die but your life will suck for a while and then Gabriel is cool with it though and the thing is like why you know Gabriel is willing to do it and this would be a sacrifice that he would have to make is the thing like the main characters have not had to make any sacrifices so far and this would be pretty much the first one so he would go you know what yes this his life is more important than my current comfort so he's like yeah just let him cut my wings off and then some demons come up and they're going to cut his wings off also Jake comes back for a minute and he also possesses Xavier's body and I don't know how that works because okay like in this in this world when humans die we have like a soul you know something inside of us that makes us alive so we aren't just a hunk of meat and when we die that soul leaves our body and it either goes to heaven or to hell or to purgatory which makes sense sure but Jake was a demon you know he was an angel and so when he died down in hell I figured that that meant that like whatever energy or particles or whatever made up his body were destroyed so he's just gone he's gone for good he's not in some other plane of existence the way a human would be so if that's the case how did they bring him back I I don't know how that works but I'm also overthinking this anyways while he's going down uh Raphael the angel Raphael comes down who has never been mentioned before and is barely brought up after this he just comes down and he saves the day like he he just decides oh okay I'll banish Lucifer from his body and it's it's just that easy so it's just another deus ex machina with no real sacrifice and no real struggle from the main characters so the evil angels come again and by this point Bethany is tired so she just goes with them and I'm not sure I need something to happen at this point just just just go and so while Bethany is up in heaven she meets an angel named Eve look why why would you why would you name an angel Eve I don't understand like Eve was the name of the first human woman and according to some interpretations which I guess are evil or something according to some interpretations she is the reason for original sin you know she she committed the first sin by eating from the tree of knowledge and by being tempted by Lucifer so like if your angels are supposed to be these perfect pure beings that always do what God tells them why would you why would you want to name one of them after her that just seems odd but anyways Eve basically tries to make Bethany give up her feelings for Xavier so that she can go back to being a proper angel and there's some really dumb dialogue about it it isn't boring to be at peace and to be at one with a collective cosmic energy that is greater than anything you can understand whatever I muttered I don't want to be part of your cosmic mosh pit haven't you seen lord of the rings I choose a mortal wife and then later while she's still trying to convince Bethany to give up her feelings Eve tells her that you and Xavier are not a healthy relationship you're codependent on one another you should be able to be apart for a while without losing your shit it's portrayed as Eve being like she doesn't understand what love is like and she's just evil the evil authority figure who always follows rules but she's right though Xavier and Bethany are codependent they can't be apart for more than a couple of minutes like I can't even think of any real relationships that Xavier has outside of Bethany like there was the one he had before the story began his ex-girlfriend Emily who died which we never see so that doesn't really count and then we see like his family his parents and all of his siblings they're all lumped together that's just one relationship he has with them sure but like what about his friends I don't know he seems to have given up on most of his hobbies and everything by this point so like yeah they do seem codependent on each other anyways apparently there are rebel angels that exist that also don't really like following rules and they also think they should be able to fall in love with humans and stuff and they agree to help Bethany escape heaven and go back down to earth but they tell her that in the process she will lose her powers and become a human you know not like the way Gabriel would have when he got his wings cut off where they would eventually grow back like this would be permanent she'd be a human she'd live and die and then she's like yeah that's cool so they cut her wings off she goes back to earth she sees Xavier and she's like oh my god I'm so happy to see you and she's like wow you look older and he says oh yeah it's been two years since you've been gone and she's like oh wow I've missed some stuff but I'm glad we're here I'm glad we can see each other again and then they just they have their happily ever after and that's the end and I will say that like at the very end at least Bethany did have to sacrifice something she did have to give something up it didn't seem like that big of a deal she didn't really have to contemplate it and say like oh do I want to become a human do I want to give up being an angel and give up my very close relationship with God or anything like that it doesn't seem like that big of a sacrifice but at least there was one I mean it is slightly better than the ending of Fallen at least where the main characters also got a happily ever after but they literally did not have to give up anything in order to get it it was just like they got to the end and God's like okay happy ever after you're good but that's not really the end of this because this copy of the book has a few extras at the end including a interview with the author Alexandra Adonetto and they ask her which character she most identifies with and she says in most ways Bethany thank you for clarifying Alexandra you know I couldn't tell that this impossibly beautiful girl basically no personality who also goes from a foreign land to the Southern United States to go to school much like Alexandra Adonetto did who went from Australia to I believe it's the University of Mississippi she says but you know the Southern United States is where she went to school like I couldn't tell that that impossibly beautiful girl who lived a very similar life to you was just a self insert I couldn't tell I'm not trying to sound too mean here but like girl you got to do a better job of hiding it than this and then for whatever reason there's like a four page long story from Molly's perspective and it just starts off with her saying it's not easy being popular in fact it's really hard that sounds like something ebony darkness dementia Ravenway would say like that genuinely sounds like a line from my immortal I'm just think things through a little bit but you know it goes through for a couple pages it's clear that yep she's a whiny popular girl just like just like I always thought at one point she says why is why is Xavier so into Bethany she does nothing for him a solid point which is never addressed anywhere else in the series but then it just kind of ends so like yeah it's a it's pointless you know so I don't know what what that final story was but you know that is the end of the halo trilogy for real for real this time and well Molly's story was kind of this series in a nutshell when you think about it you know it was it was pointless why was it there it doesn't add anything doesn't lead to anything but we get to watch this girl who is completely full of herself talk about how amazing she is but also how hard her life is because everything isn't given to her on a silver platter even though everything kind of is given to her on a silver platter and um that's really the whole series it's pointless because there's no conflict you know there's a few points where characters want something and other characters are trying to stop them from getting it or other forces or governments or whatever are trying to stop them from getting it but there's very little of it it's mostly just oh Bethany is into this dude well now they're again now they're together they're they're happy together or um they need a way to rescue Bethany from hell well there it is there's the way to rescue Bethany from hell they need a way to make Lucifer leave Xavier's body there they go they they made Lucifer leave his body there's very little cause and effect here as well which is kind of how a plot works you know you can't just be a thing happens and another thing happens and another thing happens like they have to kind of lead into one another and build towards something greater and the thing is like I get it the author was very young when she wrote this and I want to commend her for being able to get published at that age that's that's impressive but you can very easily tell that this was written by not only an author with very little experience but an author who is very young and who has not had time to work on their craft that much and the story as I said more than once there's not really any sacrifices that they have to make you know there's like it's kind of hinted at for a little while that like oh okay in order to save Xavier's life Bethany has to have sex with Jake which is kind of like getting raped at this point so like that would be giving something up but it never goes through so she doesn't actually have to do that then at the end she gets her wings cut off which was like the one sacrifice she has to make but even then it's not that big of a deal because Bethany doesn't seem to like Heaven she doesn't seem to like living there and I just say it's boring it's without ideas there's nothing here that I can even point to and go oh maybe you could have done something with that a little different and it might have been good or maybe you could have expanded on this character and they would have been interesting like there's nothing there there's absolutely nothing for me to even work with like Fallen had ideas it was bad but it had ideas Onision's books had ideas they were some of the worst piles of garbage that would ever come out but like you know they had they had ideas Hush Hush had a couple of good ideas and some of them were even done well I know that's crazy and even the parts where they didn't have any real good ideas were also done okay this whole trilogy all these pages you see here is just Boy Meets Girl They Fall in Love and there's nothing else there in the Wattpad story than I'd be more forgiving of that because Wattpad you kind of just assume is yeah this is wish fulfillment here you go it sucks but this is what I wanted to write and usually it's by young people who are just learning their craft so yeah I'm fine with it but like why is this published you know I'm not saying why would Alexandra Adornetto dare try to publish something that I think is stupid I'm not saying that I'm saying like why would publishers look at this in its current form and say yeah this is good let's let's get this out and we'll see who likes it like you wouldn't think an editor or something would go through and say okay let's tighten this up a little and tweak a few things to make it better it doesn't feel like they did that and for that matter how did this series get popular you know like Fall in I can at least see why it got popular because while it's not good it kept tricking me into thinking it would get good at some point so I can understand why others would be into it and hush hush like I said is a decent story so I can see why people would be into that but for the people who are saying like oh when I was a kid Halo was my jam I don't get it I do not get like this feels too boring even for kids to enjoy so that is pretty much all I have to say on the subject you know after this I think I'm going to take a break from the angel terrible young adult Twilight clone romance things I'm going to take a break from that because while they are all bad and it is kind of fun to poke fun at them like but believe me if I wanted to sit here for another hour I could probably have pointed out dumb lines and stuff in here but for the most part they're all just bad in the same way every time you know like they're not even bad in new or different ways so I just I don't like repeating myself too much and that's what it feels like I'm going to start doing so I will take a break from these for a little while and I might keeping on track with doing a bunch of terrible young adult books I might do some of the terrible dystopian young adult books like the Hunger Games clones in this manner so like if you have any suggestions for like really bad ones then I guess throw them down below like I have a few ideas but I don't know that one would be a little ways away because I just at least those are bad in different ways but not now because I already know what my next long terrible book review would be I asked in a poll a couple of weeks ago like what do you guys want me to do I suggested an angel young adult series that was this obviously I suggested a terrible book written about a celebrity which was not after and I suggested a terrible book written by a celebrity and now I'm just going to tell you it is The Way of the Shadow Wolves by Steven Seagal oh yes boys and girls this should be fun and if you want to get your name on here and you want to participate in stuff like polls to determine what my next video topic will be or early access to my videos then consider becoming a patron if not then maybe become a channel member because that's a thing now and I'm not good at outros so goodbye see you later bye