YA Weekend: World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult

Series: Penryn & the End of Days #2

Publisher: Skyscape (November 2013)

Author Info: www.SusanEe.com

Wendy’s Rating ~ 3.5 of 5 stars

It turns out that the angels descending upon the earth and ruining everything wasn’t actually the apocalypse. At least, that wasn’t the apocalypse the angels themselves are expecting.

In Angelfall, we got a taste of the political machinations, led by the angel, Uriel, and supported by the demon, Beliel, who is currently sporting Raffe’s wings. Raffe, who believes Penryn to be dead after the attack on the angel’s aerie, is on a hunt to retrieve those wings. Meanwhile, Penryn and her mother and sister and doing their best to fit in with the resistance movement. Not an easy feat when Penryn has seemingly returned from the dead, her mother is schizophrenic, and her little sister, Paige, has been turned into a grotesquery by the angel surgeons. And to make matters worse, the scorpion-like monster aliens that Penryn destroyed at the aerie weren’t the only collection of these hideous creatures.

As this is a post-apocalyptic invasion story, it’s unsurprising that we get a lot more of the inner workings of the angels’ macabre plans. It’s a more clinical book because of this, but, as Penryn remains in focus, there is still a lot of heart and soul, especially when she starts to develop a relationship with Pooky Bear, Raffe’s sentient angel sword. The swords memories and imagery, which it shares with Penryn at critical moments, helps to alleviate the fact that Raffe does not appear much in the book until the end. This is a disappointment for ‘shippers, I’m sure, and a brave choice for the author within a genre where romances can be a big pay off. Of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder, so…

The emotional impact is, perhaps, slightly less strong in this because of the lack of interaction Penryn has with others, including Raffe, and with the greater focus being on Uriel’s plotting. The latter is somewhat lack lustre. I find that Ee is very good with the little details and more intimate character interactions and plotting, but with something as big as Uriel’s schemes, it falls a little flat. Still, this book paves the way for a lot of speculation and I am definitely interested to see where things go in the series.