Whispers of the Fallen
(Whispers of the Fallen #1)
Publication Date: November 2012
Paperback,
316 pages, Tristar Publishing Group
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal
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.
