Thursday, February 10, 2011

Chapter 1 - You Know What That Means!

It means that I am actually starting Halo by Alexandra somethingorother and I am not loving it. Sorry fellow teenage writer who wrote Halo (yes, you heard right! I found out she's a teenager. Not her age, just that she's a teen). 
The book starts with a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Beyonce's song Halo. 
 First : O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art 
           As glorious to this night, being o’er my head, 
           As is a winged messenger of heaven 
           Unto the white-upturned wond’ring eyes 
           Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him.
Second: Baby I can see your halo,
              You know you're my saving grace.

I think you can deduce which one's which. 

After that,  there's the table of contents. Then, chapter one (called Descent) starts. From now on, I will always have a specific format for how I review each chapter. Okay? Okay. Here's how it goes:

Chapter 1 : Descent

Summary : Basically. Basically. Basically, the main characters are a bunch of angel that are sent down to earth to protect humans from... I couldn't really tell what, but I'm pretty sure it's some kind of evil. The main character is Bethany, and she's like a teen angel is what I'm guessing. It's written in first person and the only thing she does say about her age is that she's young compared to the other two angels (Gabriel and Ivy). These three spend their first few weeks on earth getting used to being "confined" in human bodies (her word, not mine) and touching stuff. They are visited by a "faceless, robed mentor" sometimes who teaches them some other stuff (which they may have or may not have touched). Okay, I just found out what they are protecting humans from. It's something or someone called the Agent of Darkness. These three angels are not the only ones sent to the earth; there are supposed to be like a million in every corner of the planet. Any who, they talk to some priest called Mel (sounds better when you say Father Mel, which is what they always call him but I want to show the ridiculousness of the name) and he acts like he knows who they really are, so I will just assume that he does.
Next, Bethany tells us what they want for people to help others and believe in miracles and have faith. It says they don't necessarily want them to be good people as in go to church every Sunday ( I will say something about this later in the commentary part. I'm not allowed to in the Summary part) and whatnot.
And then... THE ROMANCE STARTS! Bethany and the other angels are taking a stroll and they meet mystery hot guy and Bethany marvels at his "beauty" (I'm dying with sarcasm here) and has to talk to him for some reason.

Now I will transition to my next part, called commentary, and start with commenting on the mystery hot guy first because this is irresistible.
 
Commentary: And he's fishing! Ah MAH GEE! He has light brown hair the "color of walnuts" with a "lustrous sheen"(<--- direct quote) that flops over his eyes that are pale, "almond shaped and a striking turquoise blue color" and "muscular legs" (ew) and an "utterly mesmerizing smile." Thank you for that barf-tastic description Alexandra. Just thank you. This is the typical hot guy that I absolutely hate. Almost every story has a guy that will look and act exactly like this one. No. I don't accept this. But that doesn't make a difference!
Remember how I said I would comment on the church thing every Sunday? Yes. I'm doing that... NOW! I don't like how this book, even in the first chapter, is taking liberties with religion. It talks about how heaven is. It's supposedly a state of just nothingness. Nothing had substance, nothing was "confined" and blah blah blah. I don't believe heaven is like that. It says that the "powers" above were helping them, but since the angels are Christian and Christianity is a monotheistic religion as far as I know, saying powers to represent one God does not make sense to me. Also, the books says Christianity is the true religion which a lot of people do not agree with. Being told that your own religion is wrong in an indirect way is not right, even if it is done through a fiction book. That is going to be and probably is a big turn off for many people when they read this book.
Another pointI have has to do with the way Alexandra has forced her two star characters to meet. So basically, Ivy, Gabriel, and Bethany are walking down the pier or beach or wherever they are, and they see whatshisname. The mystery hot guy flashes a smile at them, and then they freak out and act like they just have to talk to him or else it will be the most obvious thing in the world that they are angels. No, that's not true. Usually, the most strangers do at each other is smile. That's it. Talking makes it both people think, "This is awkward" (as stated by the boys at my school's rally today when all of them chanted this is awkward when one of the performances' music wouldn't work and they were in the same stance for some time). That bothered me so much. They didn't even need to talk. But Bethany, in her head, was all freaking out for no reason at all and would die if she didn't talk to him. It was awkward.
Did  I mention it was totes love a first sight?
Isn't that like completely DISGUSTING?
Yeah, I thought as much.
Chosen Quote: "Since when did angels worry about coming across as slightly stand-offish?"
Quote Commentary: I wouldn't know.

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