Angel Fever by May RidgeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
*I received this book from NetGalley, and Less Than Three in return for a fair review.*
The story was both not what I expected and what I expected. For I expected a story involving an Angel and a Priest, and that the Angel would be looking for his mother - with the help of the Priest. And that there had been conflict between the two species in the past. And possibly still some conflict on-going in the present.
An Angel did pop up looking for his mom. And a priest did help. But . . . I . . . for some reason I didn't expect that the Angel would be 17-I'm-almost-18 year old. Stupid of me, I know, but I just assumed that it would be an adult who was curious about his past, not some wet-behind the ears kid. One who is smug, arrogant, and very very determined to smirk at everything (I'm actually surprised that the word 'smirk' only appears 21 one times in the short story). Quite frankly the Angel was completely unlike-able. The priest? While he also seemed to like smirking, he also seemed . . . less than what I'd want to find, but he was tolerable just the same. (I suppose Eli took up that 'really arrogant, smug, extremely smirk-able, asshole priest' position - Eli being one of the side characters of the piece).
There were many things that just baffled me. Like, is this short story supposed to be part of a larger series? Because I kind of entered it and found myself confused immediately. It was hard to get a handle on the society I found. Words I know, like 'Angel', 'Priest', 'Chapel', 'Pope', 'Western Europe', 'London', kept appearing in the story . . . and yet, it was the back drop to a society and people that did not correspond to what I would naturally think of when those terms were used. For one thing the priests are not celibate, women have more power than I'd expect for anything that has a 'Pope' as the religious head, the Pope apparently lives in London, and Angels . . . appeared to be massive pricks.
I didn't really get a good handle on this culture. Just that there were three entities in it - Angels, Priests, and mundane humans. And that the Priests, I think, came from humans. And that everyone with any kind of position is forced to give up their kids to orphanages - which is also where the same people go to get people to be things like Priests and Angels. But, is there a society outside of that? Just . . . Angels who do not correspond to the concept I have for angels, priests who do not appear priest like, etc. etc. And don't get me started on how women were treated in this story (the only one with a bit of power is kind of disliked, had her (view spoiler), while those without specific 'power' are seen as being 'common' and somewhat beneath contempt - at least in the only ways you see them in the story (evil, or lessor, common - like, for example, three types of Angel healers, Male (rare), It (?), and Female - with female on the bottom). And, oddly, except for that one 'Lady', the Priests side apparently had no other women in evidence except door-minders (one). I can't really go with the council part on the Angel side - only one council member was shown, it wasn't explicitly stated that no women were on it, and just because the only female seen over there was the receptionist doesn't really mean anything.
Saying all that - the story had some interesting aspects. Part of my problem is I didn't really know the society at all so I couldn't pick up on some of the things I would have in another story. Like there was kissing, but mentions that it 'wasn't really what it seemed', or maybe it was - I do not have the background to tell what's going on. I do not know enough about the people and society.
I didn't particularly like 'kid-angel' though as the story progressed I 'accepted him' more. The Priest dude . . . well, everything was from kid angel's point of view. And he didn't exactly like some of the things the priest dude did. Though, by observation, the priest dude also had some disagreeable aspects. Like when he ended up in a jail like cell with the kid, his immediate reaction seemed to be to turn to tease the kid (until he realized something that caused him to stop, but that still was his first reaction).
Oh and - we all have differing levels of 'explicit content'. I went into this story with this little note on NetGalley: 'Angel Fever contains no explicit content.' Which made me think that there would be no explicit content at all - like no touching, kissing, etc., at least not passionate type. A lot more kissing in this story than I'd expect for 'no explicit content'. Which, of course, brings us back to different levels of what 'explicit content' means. And, well, kissing is icky - you know the amount of germs the mouth contains? 'A single tooth can host 500 million bacteria.' And one of the worst things about a bite wound isn't the bite itself, it's the icky gross germs, bacteria, and the like that will infect the wound - transferred over from the mouth, from the bite (my own grandmother ended up in the hospital less because of the cat bite, but because of the germs that infected her from the cat bite).
Rating: 3.05
June 7 2017 and June 8 2017
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