Review: Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi

In One Line:  very lovely angel does something very bad indeed.

Genre: Romeo and Juliet, except with more religion, and maybe a little bit of The Little Mermaid thrown in? (not the Disney version)

The Gist:

Serafina is an Angel of Death, which means she has a manifesto and has to be ready to go collect souls when they go meet their maker. She does it very well, and has lots of bells and whistles to make dying a rather nice experience indeed. That’s her job, and she’s one the best and brightest. Until she meets Marcus, who is a gangsta (that’s right people, we’re spelling it that way) who is due to die in a club shooting. Except that Sera can’t stand to see him die because he’s rather beautiful and all that. So a stranger tells her she can ask for an extension, which Sera agrees to rather stupidly, because she fails to read the small print. It means that Marcus’ best friend has to die instead. With time running out on Marcus’ extension, can Sera save his soul as well as avoid the repercussions of her little deal she made with the weird stranger?

The Cover:

I love this cover. Because Goth angels are blatantly cool, and although it represents Sera towards the end of the novel, it makes reading it intriguing because you’ll spend your time wondering how she turns from a very renaissance-reubenesque being into someone who paints tears on her eyes with kohl. Also, Sarah Mussi, your bright pink Impact font ROCKS. 

Why You’ll Love This Book

• It’s full of questions, and meanings and wonderment without ever being patronising, which is a pretty hard feat to do.
• Sera’s voice is brilliant. You just kind of have to accept that she’s overly sweet and rather stupid and get over it, and then once you’re over it her voice becomes a joy to read. There were times when I thought her naivety was a little distracting, but generally her character is believable and ultimately rather loveable. 
• The scope of this book is wild. Sarah Mussi sure knows her shizzle when it comes to the angel world. And she’s thought of everything, which I really like. There’s a whole world up there, with it’s own politics and problems, as well as a hellish world down there, where, if I were to uptake Mussi’s philosophy, a few more of us are doomed to experience than we realise. 

Why You May Not Love This Book:

• If you believe in heaven and hell and angels and all that, then great. If you are a toughened cynic like me, then this book isn’t for you. It just captures on to an ethic that can be hard for some people to grasp and believe in. 
• The doctrine in this book is very heavy-handed and old testament. It’s like the world has very much moved on, and Heaven is stuck in the renaissance. I’m not sure I get that. Same applies to the knowledge Serafina seemingly has. Sometimes she is very knowledgeable on human things, and then sometimes she doesn’t get them at all. I just needed the lines to be clearer. 
• If you’re studying for Religion and Ethics GCSE then you may find this book useful. It raises interesting questions, and things that I’m sure all of us have pondered at some point. If you’re not into the Meaning of Life type thing, then I think you might find the ponderings of Free Will throughout the book a little too much. And also, the only conclusion I could actually come to was that God and Angels therefore couldn’t possibly exist. So I think I missed the point somewhere. 
• Marcus. Marcus. Marcus. Marcus. Why does Sera fall in love with him? Other than the fact that he’s quite pretty? If anyone can enlighten me, then throw the comments my way. Thanks. 
• I didn’t understand the chapter headings. 

The Hypersomnia Test:

It failed. I found myself putting the book down and not being particularly inspired to pick it up again. And I think I know why. I wanted more interaction between the lovebirds. They’re hardly ever together, and seeing as epic, earth-shattering romance is the core plot of this book, I just couldn’t find any epic, earth-shattering romance. I didn’t fancy Marcus. I didn’t know why Sera fancied Marcus, and some of the religion stuff just plain annoyed me. 

Final Verdict:

I am a pretty hardened atheist, and I just don’t think this book is for me. I’m quite definite of my opinions of heaven and hell, so reading a book that takes these concepts so seriously, without any semblance of tongue-in-cheek made it a little hard to read. I stand by this book being excellently written, but I’m afraid that I’m just not its reader. 

Further Reading:

Angel by L.A. Weatherly

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Fallen by Lauren Kate

To buy Angel Dust click HERE!!!