Review: Whispers of the Fallen by J.D. Netto

Whispers of the Fallen

J.D. Netto

(Whispers of the Fallen #1)

Publication Date: November 2012

Paperback, 316 pages, Tristar Publishing Group

Genres: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal

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Ever since the dawn of days, rumors about the Diary of Lucifer echoed throughout Elysium. Hidden from all human knowledge, the Diary was kept a secret, locked away in the small village of Agalmath.

Isaac and Demetre find themselves in a dangerous journey as they uncover the truth about the Diary and those who guarded it for all these years. However, for Isaac and Demetre, danger lies at every step, hidden in the most unexpected places.

Hunted by the Nephilins and the Fallen Stars, they must find others who will join them in the battle against the coming darkness.

My Review

I don’t really know how to start off this review. Usually, I come up with something witty to say about the books I review, but I don’t have any material for this one. *sigh*

I had heard some great things about this book from various reviewers on the Internet. While people were saying that the plot is super-fast and that that was a bit of a bummer, they also said that it was good, regardless. I, however, didn’t get that feeling. I requested this book from the publisher to review based on the book’s premise and the amount of good feedback I had heard.

My main issue with this book was the language. The book seemed to be trying to imitate an old-English, folk-type language, but it just didn’t get there, at all. The sentences were extremely wordy and a lot of the time they didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I feel like an editor needs to go in and chop things down. If you want to read this book, I’d suggest reading it aloud. That really helped me to flow through the story better.

Whispers of the Fallen has a male protagonist named Isaac. This was what got me really excited to read this book, enough to request it for review. I was in the mood for a good male-centered story. I also heard that this book was about angels (and it is, sort of). There’s not a lot of YA male angel books out there. Unfortunately, Isaac wasn’t a very developed character. I didn’t know who he was as a person. He just immediately became a “good” guy and kept talking about how things were right or wrong. Later on, the story switches P.O.V. to Nephele’s story. Nephele is the bad girl of the book, so that switch completely threw me off.

Not only did the aforementioned P.O.V. switch throw me off, but it also confused me plot-wise. There were a lot of questions that were left unanswered about Isaac that I can’t mention without getting spoilery. The storyline wasn’t completely easy to follow in the beginning of the book so switching didn’t help. And the amount of characters and character names were kind of hard to keep track of.

One thing I did enjoy about the story was the idea behind it. The creatures in the book aren’t angels, but fallen stars. I thought that this was an incredibly unique concept, until I kept reading. Then I realized that the stars were really just angels with a different name. The bad guys’ leader is named Lucifer, the stars have wings, and they call themselves Nephilin (just add an “m” and what do you get?)…  I also liked the idea of the diaries.

All in all, Whispers of the Fallen has a very interesting and unique background, it just needs to be executed in a more reader-friendly way.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher. This in no way altered my opinion/review.