A Shimmer of Angels by Lisa M. BassoBOOK DESCRIPTION FROM AMAZON:
In this compelling and spirited debut novel, 16-year-old Rayna Evans has spent the last three years in a mental institution for seeing angels—intent on remaining free, she ignores signs that she may be slipping into a world she has tried to climb out of. When her hallucinations begin showing up at school, can she keep her sanity and prevent students from dying at the hands of angels she cannot admit to seeing? Psychiatry, fantasy, and realism come together here in a story of a young girl struggling with identity, secrets, and confronting her greatest fears.
MY REVIEW:
The world says Rayna is crazy because she thinks she sees wings. The doctors tell her it is her way of believing her mother went to a good place after she passed away. She convinces herself, and everyone who has control over whether she stays in the mental health clinic, that she no longer sees wings. Being in remission, they allow her to go back to school. Her family struggles to rebuild their relationships. Her father thinks she is very fragile and doesn't want her to even go back to school, let alone take a job at the local diner. Her sister becomes resentful of her illness and the time it has caused her to be away from home, the relocations the family made to help her feel better, and the pain she causes her family by not being normal.
Everything is going okay for a while until it happens again. Cam enters the scene, a new kid at school with glorious white wings. She tries to hold it together and pretend she doesn't see them because she doesn't want to be locked up again. Things escalate though, when Cam figures out she can see him, and for the first time ever she sees black wings when Kade shows up. This leads her through a battle between good and evil, angels and fallen angels. She has to deal with deaths of her classmates and ultimately try to save any more from being casualities in this war.
I enjoyed most aspects of this book. Some parts of it were a little difficult too see as really happening. Oddly enough, it wasn't the angels or supernatural aspects. It was more like the part where Rayna was allowed to keep her waitressing job when she seemed to be so bad at it. The part where Kade dressed her up like a hooker, why did he do that? Then she was cut very badly and bleeding everywhere when she broke the window out of a car, and dressed like a hooker, but when she showed up at Lee's house that way it didn't seem like anyone found it odd.
I liked the character of Kade more than Cam. But, Kade gets to be the rough and tumble, throw caution to the wind guy, and Cam has to be on his best behavior. Kade is a fallen angel, but there is that romantic notion that he fell from grace for the love of Rayna's mother. He has black wings but his actions show he has a good heart.
The end wasn't really an end, there is so much of the story left untold.
I was given a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
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