Brianna Reviews - Strange Angels by Lili St.Crow

Published: 14^th May 2009

Publisher: Razorbill

Format: Paperback

Synopsis: In Strange Angels, Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.) Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her?

There are a few reasons why I picked Strange Angels to read:  1)I was sat in a library and I didn’t feel like reading the book I was currently reading, so I asked Caragh to do some random book picking. But Strange Angels wasn’t the only option which brings us to 2) It had previously come up in a search I did for books containing werewolves - (I felt the Werewolf/Vampire balance was uneven. Turns out the blurbs for werewolf books just don’t appeal) – It was one of the only appealing books that came up in this search. 3) Strange Angels came across sounding a little bit like similar to a TV show I like to watch – Supernatural. 

I’m really glad I gave Strange Angels a chance because for the most part I enjoyed reading it. It's not the best thing I’ve read but I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare. Point #2 above however proved to be somewhat incorrect in my opinion, yes this book does contain werewolves but it also contains other supernatural elements in equal measure so personally I wouldn’t really class this as a werewolf book. One thing that does put me off slightly is it seems to be like Lili St. Crow is trying to put a new spin on the supernatural which in itself I don’t mind but when that involves changing ‘werewolves’ to ‘werewulfen’ it doesn’t make it new or different and doesn’t fool anyone - just call them what they are. This book also contains vampires but of course they are never called vampires. Strange Angels is also in my view quite racist in places. Dru refers to Graves who is half Asian as “Half-Breed” - since when is that acceptable? Lili St. Crow also constantly reminds us that Graves is half Asian. Once was enough. I don’t need to be constantly reminded.
Dru is a strong and independent character which normally I would respect but I don’t. In fact I spent a lot of the book struggling to like Dru. I think she is a little too independent and is incapable of accepting help when it is necessary. I would understand her pushing Graves away and shutting him out (to protect him) if it had been before the mall incident, however Dru spends most of her time trying to shut Graves out after the damage has already been done and by this point I think she should just accept his friendship. She also constantly refers to him as “kid” – I should point out that he is the same age as her and is far from being an innocent child so she just sounds needlessly patronising. I might be slightly biased in my views of Dru considering I do in fact like Graves. He seems like a genuinely nice person and more importantly he sticks by Dru even when he is terrified. I also don’t like Christophe he just comes across as a jerk… in fact Graves is the only character I truly like and Dru only half of the time.

In summary I did like reading this book and I do intend to read the next one, I wouldn’t buy the next one though so it entirely depends on if I can find the next one in the library. I would recommend this book for a quick read with no great literary expectations.