Review: Angelbound by Christina Bauer

Title: Angelbound
Author: Christina Bauer
Series: Angelbound Origins #1
Genre: Fantasy/Romance/Paranormal
Publisher: Monster House Books, LLC
Publication Date: December 17th, 2013
Edition: Kindle Edition, 525 pages
Source: Library
Purchase/Pre-Order: Amazon US | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | iBooks | BAM

Synopsis:

     Eighteen-year-old Myla Lewis is a girl who loves two things: kicking ass and kicking ass. She’s not your every day quasi-demon, half-demon and half-human, girl. For the past five years, Myla has lived for the days she gets to fight in Purgatory’s arena. When souls want a trial by combat for their right to enter heaven or hell, they go up against her, and she hasn’t lost a battle yet.

     But as she starts her senior year at Purgatory High, the arena fights aren’t enough to keep her spirits up anymore. When the demons start to act weird, even for demons, and the King of the Demons, Armageddon, shows up at Myla’s school, she knows that things are changing and it’s not looking good for the quasi-demons. Myla starts to question everything, and doesn’t like the answers she finds. What happened seventeen years ago that turned the quasi-demons into slave labor? Why was her mom always so sad? And why won’t anyone tell her who her father is?

     Things heat up when Myla meets Lincoln, the High Prince of the Thrax, a super sexy half-human and half-angel demon hunter. But what’s a quasi-demon girl to do when she falls for a demon hunter? It’s a good thing that Myla’s not afraid of breaking a few rules. With a love worth fighting for, Myla’s going to shake up Purgatory.

    I read this book shortly after I started to get better at writing reviews, It was part of a bind-up of what was at the time the first three books. Armageddon was the third book at the time, now it's I think the sixth. It honestly wasn't a very... comprehensive review. Now that some time has passed, and I have re-read this book, I want to write a review that does it justice.

    The major gripe I have with this book is the very beginning. Myla's mother in the first chapter is written very inconsistently. She starts off with a some-what hardass personality when telling her daughter to get out of bed for school, then just a few pages later she's this completely different person who is more of a gooey parent and gets terrified of her daughter fighting in the arena despite the fact that she's been doing it for years and it's mentioned more than once that the Quasi-demons don't have a choice when they are ordered to do something by the ghouls. It was a little bothersome, but not the worst thing a book could do. There are other times when her mother is having a somewhat meltdown and Myla asks her what's wrong and her mother seems to expect her to recognize something that she's never seen before. Basically, most everything surrounding her mother is what I didn't like very much about this book.

    Something else that I didn't necessarily like or dislike but almost felt wasn't needed, was the plotline around her shitty friend and her friend's new boyfriend. I get that they didn't want Myla to be friendless, but they might as well have for all the character added to the story. It was barely a subplot. Just an oddly jealous friend, who's demon side is envy, who got pissy about Myla making a new friend but wasn't upset in the slightest when she thought that Myla had feelings for her boyfriend. 

    What I loved, was Myla as a whole, her arena fighting. Just everything that was more about Myla than any of the subplots. How the romance with Lincoln progressed, and all her interactions with him in general. I also really liked Walker, his character was very interesting in my opinion. I really like that the romance between Lincoln and Myla didn't happen until about halfway through the book. It was a good 'Hate to Love' romance. One of my favorite tropes.

    I almost would have preferred that the dreamscapes sent to Myla weren't something that her mother approved of, her knowing about them didn't really add all that much to the story if you take into account that her mother's reaction when Myla found out to certain things about herself. It didn't seem to help the story move along anymore smoothly with her mother knowing and approving of Myla having messages sent to her in her sleep. 

    Small complaints aside, I still really love this book. Some of it might just be nit-picking, but at the end of the day I still enjoyed it and want to read the rest of the series.