Review: Angels of the Apocalypse, Part 1: Alignment by J.J. Harkin

Let me just begin by saying that I think the story of Angels of the Apocalypse: Alignment is a decent one. There is definitely potential in what could happen in the sequels. I don’t know what’s going to happen, though I have a few suspicions.

That being said, I didn’t like this book. I wasn’t drawn into the story until about halfway through the book. The entire first half, my thoughts were along the lines of “Okay, what in the world do all of these characters have to do with one another?” and “When is the actual storyline going to start?” There were a few times at the beginning where I just wanted to set the book down and pick up something else. That doesn’t happen to me very often.

The characters were flat for me. I think it might have been that there were so many characters that there wasn’t really time to develop any of them. What bothered me was that it wasn’t just the secondary characters that were flat. The main characters didn’t seem that developed to me, either.

There were other things that bothered me about the book, as well. It wasn’t perfect for grammar. There were also phrases that stuck out to me as things no one would actually say in real life, and others that were “duh, the action already said that. You didn’t need to reiterate it and tell us about it.” There was one where something the dog did that was amusing, the author stated that it amused them and the girl giggled. Why not just say what the dog did and that the girl giggled?

Besides there being a little more “telling” vs. “showing” in what I read, as I said, by the second half of the book, I was more interested. I don’t know what changed, because the author’s style didn’t change, but I think maybe the story just picked up.

The main reason I didn’t like the book, though, was that there wasn’t really any actual action in the book. In every story, there is a beginning where you explain things, then the action should kind of go in an arc, with a climax of action or whatever, and then an end. This book seemed completely like it was the explanation before the actual story began (I’m hoping in the sequel). There were little intrigues here and there, with some more interesting things that happened, but nothing I could accurately call some action!

I think with some polish and revision, the book could have been really good. It just wasn’t that good for me.

**Note: this is a review of the first version of this ebook. The author has since released updates.

About Brittany Westerberg

I'm a lover of writing and books. I graduated from South Dakota State with a master's degree in communications in 2011, the same year I was first published. I'm a wife and mom, and I work in content and digital marketing in South Dakota.