Up until about the 30% point of this book, the story seemed a bit interesting. But, suddenly, just at the crux of the story, where it looked like things were going to take off, everything changed. Now, instead of following a man through *something*, the author decided to throw pages and pages of misery, sorrow, pain, and torture of the man's family at us. Why? I don't know. I'm sorry to say that after a few score pages of that horror, I gave up. If the author had just stuck with the main character and story instead of flying off with what appears to be irrelevant garbage, this might have been an OK book. But, since the book was making me physically ill (as well as going nowhere), I had to quit. I rate it at a Horrible 1 star out of 5. In one word -- "childish"Just in case you haven't, go and read this book's description. All set? Sounds pretty good, right? Well, too bad you're not going to read anything like that. Though the description of fallen angels and parallel worlds sounds intriguing, the actual content of this book has nothing to do with that. At all. Maybe the sequels do, but that's not the point. The point is to build on a theme and tell a story and the story this tells is, again, childish. I'm so glad I didn't pay for this. "You get what you pay for" is ever true.The prologue is pretty good actually, but it has to do with observers in our world investigating floods caused by a winged form destroying a facility of some kind. Interesting. What's not interesting -- 300 pages of fragmented and poorly written characters that are incredibly stereotypical. They're just plain ridiculous, all of them. The helpless widow who's not really a widow. Her son (also thought dead) being trained by a Japanese-esque teacher who manages to sound like a five year old even though I think he was supposed to be a teenager by the end. The doddering old man who's not really an old man but who manages to do absolutely nothing the entire book. The abusive and idiotic governor who is dumber than any character deserves to be. Oh, and the black slaves of course. I was surprised the author didn't have them using racial slang from a 1950's movie, it would have fit right in. There was also a passing reference to "Brown skinned natives in loin cloths" too, sheesh.The author didn't seem to understand how to write people. Instead they come off as cardboard cuts outs. There was no depth and no inspiration behind them. The book was written as if to a five year old, though it is not being presented as young adult (wouldn't even be good as a YA book either, though). I felt so dumb slogging through this, as every line insulted my intelligence. I really just had to see where this was going to go (or not go) just out of sadistic curiosity.The plot itself could be summarized in three sentences. Husband goes missing and wife is forced to deal with newly appointed abusive and idiotic husband. Their son is thought dead but is really training to be a warrior monk. hmmm, didn't need three sentences.There is so much better out there than this, please pick up something else so no more of this is produced.
What do You think about Awaken His Eyes (2011)?
Entire thing feels a lot like a prequel rather than its own novel.
—phillip
