The Gist
Guardian angels do exist. Also known as Terrae Angelus, they live on Earth, can control the elements, and have free will to choose between good and evil. And they save humans in danger. Tiro Griffin is one of those angels. After spending three horrible years being abused by Mentor angel Nicopolis, Griffin is reassigned to Mentor Basil, to be taught the ways of the Terrae Angelus. He has three years of knowledge, training, mission, and affection to make up for before his Proelium at age sixteen, where he will fight to become a full guardian angel. Three years isn’t a very long time.
What We Think
Reviewed by Living Destiny
Number of Pages: 169
Oh, where to begin. Wheeeeere to begin. Angels. Guardian angels. Not the most original concept, but at the same time, not the most overused. How bad can it be, right? Bad. Very bad. The plot had potential, for sure. It just wasn’t carried out well enough. The book was SO SHORT. Sorry. But seriously, 169 pages? I’ve had homework longer than that. And the funny part? It took me a month to finish it. I sincerely did not want to read it. And here I am trying to review it, and honestly I don’t want to do that either. BUT. I must. So. Characters! The dynamic between Basil and Griffin was enjoyable to read. They had a little witty banter going on, which was honestly one of the few redeemable qualities of the book. Katie was also a good character, but some of her decisions were stupid or exaggerated. She didn’t come off as very intelligent at times, and Griffin came off as trying too hard, which made for an odd relationship. The other characters weren’t developed at all. The bad guy, Nicopolis, is very bad. He’s super bad (no relation to the movie). But it never explains why he’s so bad. It’s just like, RAR I’M DEVIOUS AND EVIL MWAHAHAHA!!! Why is he devious and evil? Um...well it’s totally unclear. He just is. And that’s annoying! You can’t just have a bad guy without an explanation as to why he’s so vindictive. And speaking of things that have no explanation, there’s clearly some sort of history between Basil, Nicopolis, and Guardian Mayla, probably sprung from when they were young Tiros, but that isn’t explained either. Half of this book needs to be inferred, and if I’m reading a book I expect it to tell me a story, not make me tell the story myself. Oh, and Guardian Mayla was way too trusting. She comes in twice, and both times she doesn’t question Nicopolis at all. If the three of them do have history, which I can only assume as it doesn’t say, she would know what a sneaky, conniving person he is. Unless, of course, his general evil-ness is a recent occurrence, which is doubtful, although it DOESN’T SPECIFY (can you tell that bothers me?). Guardian Mayla is simply too naïve. And since I’m talking about Mayla, I have to ask: what’s with the names? I understand the concept of creating names for characters; names you like, names that fit the character, names that speak to you. But some of these names I find hard to believe are actually names at all. Nicopolis? Mayla? There’s a bit character, who literally appears only in two pages, whose name is Sukalli. Basil and Griffin are bizarre names too, but at least they’re actual names. Those other three are just absurd. Oh but they’re angels! They’re magical! Guess what. You can be a magically magical angel without having a name spelt Joakkaenn. It drove me crazy.
The plot itself was dull. One would think, if the book is about guardian angels who live solely to save people, it would be more exciting. No. Most of the book revolves around the relationship between Griffin and Katie, which I honestly didn’t care about. There wasn’t anything interesting in it. They meet. They like each other. There are problems. They are solved. That’s the whole relationship right there, but it’s stretched out over 100 pages. There was almost no action. The only time I was interested was when Basil and Griffin were out on missions, saving people. Those moments, however, were few and far between. And most of them were just descriptions from the ‘journal entries’ that the author was so fond of using. I was so bored reading this book. The only other conflict in the book was between Griffin and this other guy named Nash. That was where Griffin really got to showcase his stupidity. It was a beautiful moment, really. Nash goes to attack him, and there’s Griffin, all guardian angel like and ready to defend himself. He has super strength; he could just fight him off. But does he? No, he breaks the ground and shoots fire. Yea, that’s totally discreet. No one suspects anything abnormal about you now Griffin, don’t worry about it. What a moron. There was just nothing particularly captivating in the story. And since I mentioned it before, I feel like I need to talk about it: the way the story is told. Quite possibly one of the weirdest narration techniques I’ve ever run into. This story is told in third person omniscient (which, in case you don’t know, is using ‘he’ not ‘I’ and giving thoughts from multiple characters). I’m ok with third person omniscient. When it’s used right it’s actually very fun to read. But just that one writing style wasn’t enough for this book. No, Griffin Rising had to be told from third person omniscient, plus journal entries from the three main characters, Griffin, Basil and Katie. That was just awesome to read! Oh…wait…NO IT WASN’T! It was confusing and annoying, and I always had to check to make sure I knew who was doing the talking, or who was having the thoughts I was reading. This book invented a brand new, totally obnoxious way of story telling, that had some potential but was carried out poorly. The ending was totally awful. It was just too…fake! Overly hopeful and cheesy. Plain bad. The last line too. It was so gross I wanted to puke when I read it. Are there any merits of this book? I remembered one! I enjoyed the whole ‘manuscript’ thing in the beginning. Pity she didn’t expand on that one more. Or put more focus on the saving people as opposed to the Pinocchio-esque, I’m-a-real-boy theme. Blech. I didn’t like any of the characters (unless the dog counts), I didn’t like the storyline, and I truly hated the ending. This teensy-tiny, poor excuse for young adult fiction should be avoided. Period.
Real Teen Rating~ D: It passes time. I guess.
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