Review: World After – Susan Ee

Posted 28 May, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review: World After – Susan EeWorld After by Susan Ee
Series: Penryn & The End of Days #2
Published by Skyscape on 19 November 2013
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: eBook
Source: Kindle Purchase
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4 Stars

In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?

Darker and more twisted than Angelfall, World After took me into a very strange universe, in which Penryn had to prove herself again and again.

My World After review:

World After has a very different feel to it than Angelfall, too, whereas there was desperation and fights, as well as hope in Angelfall, here, the desperation is darker and has a deadly edge to it. Penryn is just as strong as I remembered, though, even when she has doubts about her own capabilities. While Penryn and her mom and sister were much the same way I thought they would be, some of the secondary characters I had already met didn’t seem to have the same kind of presence here, and I kind of missed them a little bit.

Even with all the fights, battles and dangerous situations Penryn found herself in, I thought the story in World After took a long time to unfold, it was slow paced for most of it, even when there was a lot of action. I enjoyed the aspects dealing with loyalty and family a lot, as well as the way they had to adjust to this still new to them world, where angels weren’t there to protect them, but rather to destroy them to further their own power.

Written mostly in first person point of view from Penryn’s perspective, with some third person when Penryn was observing other characters, the present tense should have made me feel more involved in World After than I did. Overall, the story is still good though, and I am definitely going to read the last instalment as well.

Some of my favorite World After quotes:

There are kids my age, but I don’t recognize any of them. Even though a lot of them are as tall as adults, they don’t stray far from their parents.

I shove everything into the vault in my head and mentally lean hard to shut the door. i have a whole world in there now. I can’t afford to open it without the serious risk of being crushed by all the stuff that’ll spill out. Some of my friends had therapists in the World Before. What I have in that vault could take a therapist’s entire career to untangle.

I take comfort in reminding myself that I am just a kid, not a hero. Heroes have a tendency to die in horrible ways. 

The broken glass reflects the light from the sky like a carpet of flickering fireflies that stretches out as far as I can see. It’s so unexpectedly beautiful that I pause to look at it. how can something so wondrous come out of such devastation?

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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6 responses to “Review: World After – Susan Ee

  1. I can’t believe that I still haven’t read Angelfall. I’ve had the book since waaaay before it became popular but other books keep moving ahead of it. :/ I even have it in paperback because I didn’t have a kindle when it released and I wanted to read it so badly. *ha* I’m happy you liked World After even if some of the elements (characters) you enjoyed from Angelfall weren’t present. I will, eventually, start this series. 🙂

    **BIG HUGS** I MISS GIGGLING WITH YOU!!!

    Bookworm Brandee recently posted: Review ~ Paradise City ~ CJ Duggan
  2. I loved how Penryn grows to respect her mother for her strengths. It was touching to see that her mom, even with her problems, was such a strong part of the story. That was the saving point of the novel for me.

    Lyn Kaye recently posted: Epic Recs: June

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