Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

I finished reading Angelology with a distinct impression that Trussoni would like to be the next Dan Brown. And you know how I felt about The Davinci Code.

Despite my misgivings from early on (starting with the patronizing marketing letter), I did read the book cover to cover, and I enjoyed many bits of the story. However, overall, I felt the plot and characters were still very rough around the edges and that the manuscript could have used a few more thorough revisions. The puerile naming of the characters--Evangeline, Angelina, Seraphina, Celestine--was over the top and like Dan Brown, Trussoni has a tendency to spell things out for readers just in case they missed it the light veiling of facts the first two or three times.

What troubles me most has to do with Evangeline, who lacks depth and credibility. We are told she had an amazing relationship with her father, but it wasn't shown. She's unconvincing as a young woman in general, but I also can't buy that she's a nun. She lacks a certain conviction, which may have been sacrificed (if it existed in the first place) in trying to make this book appeal to a more secular audience.

Last, I was completely disappointed by the ending, which was too abrupt and resolved nothing (a sequel seems inevitable, but I won't be reading it), and seemed in direct opposition to the characterization of Evangeline and Verlaine (the academic romantic interest) up to that point.

I admire all the work that Trussoni must have done to piece such a promising premise together, but in the end Angelology falls far short of its potential.


This ARC was won in a contest through RandomHouse.ca. And yes, I was drawn to this book because of its wonderful cover.

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

I think this title seems more like a nonfiction title about politics or the economy than a novel, and the cover--eh. Unprovoking. Unindicative. And because this will come up later, it's worth noting that this is a Jackson Brodie thriller--one of a series. Would you guess that by looking at the cover?

When Will There Be Good News? is, though, definitely an apropos question for this book. The first chapter ends with murder most foul. Though the description of the murder is artful, impressive and promising, this sets readers up for disappointment in the rest of the book, which doesn't follow through. And everything just keeps getting worse. Accidental deaths. Cruel siblings. A train wreck. Psychotic killers running loose.

It sounds like page-turning goodness, right? And it mostly is, except that every chapter shifts perspective. Sometimes that works. In this book, some of the characters took too long to get tied in to the rest of the plot, and because of the perspective shifts, they took too long to get to know. (As the NY Times review says, it "at times derail[s] the narrative momentum.")

The main characters:

• Dr. Joanna Hunter, the woman who was the girl who survived the first chapter
• Reggie, a 16-year-old orphan who takes care of the Hunters' baby boy
• Louise, a detective obsessed with Dr. Hunter's ability to overcome tragedy and another woman's inability to do the same and who is also desperately insecure in her abilities to be anything other than a cop
• Jackson Brodie, a former cop who accidentally ends up in Scotland just in time to be part of the action

Louise, who may be the most active of the characters--in a movie version, she'd probably get the most screen time--was also the least impressive. I wouldn't want to spend time in a room with her, though she seems well-liked within the book. Louise makes random eco-aware statements that makes me think Atkinson was determined to keep every single trait she'd devised for Louise*

Reggie was perhaps the most organic, most genuine of the characters--and she was funny. I was disappointed to reach the end of the Reggie chapters because it meant moving on to one of the others. Joanna would have been forgettable if she weren't such a necessary part of the plot. Ironically, Jackson Brodie's part seemed contrived and superfluous.

When Will There Be Good News? begins with promise and doesn't quite follow through, though readers will find themselves determined to find out what happens despite.


* I found Louise's random eco-aware comments very hard to swallow, as well as against the grain of the rest of her character.

Thanks to Little, Brown & Co. for this review copy.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I read this book in spite of my instinct to ignore all of the hullabaloo that followed its release, but a few too many people whose opinions I generally trust told me I should read it, so I picked it up at a garage sale. I may not be listening to the next recommendations of those people who told me to read this.

I can't say that I don't understand why so many people were fascinated by this book; its presentation of facts (false facts or true facts, I'm not differentiating) was captivating. I would have loved to have fallen into this book as completely as everyone else seemed to. I'm not sure whether I found doing so difficult because it's now more than three years since its publication and because I've seen too many news blurbs about people (especially tourists) who take everything in the book literally, or whether it was mainly the style of the writing.

I'm leaning towards: style. I was so fed up with the choppy chapters, the constant shifts in point of view, the refusal to let narrative flow naturally, and the unevenness of the characterization that I almost put the book down about halfway through. Brown uses chapters to indicate a point of view switch--but not consistently. Within chapters a few times, he also switches POV's on readers (which isn't difficult to follow because there's a section break). I found the shorter chapters made it harder to keep track of all the characters, and I certainly didn't feel that I needed to be shown the story from every character's point of view.

Brown, besides being heavy on his adverbs, couldn't let a story unfold without a few false starts. He'd hint that there was something coming, a story to be told, but then he'd refuse to tell it. It felt like a cheap suspense-building tactic, and I thought it could have been better.

Also, the characters are supposed to be smart, but it didn't feel like that thoughout the whole book. They'd have consistent memorization-smart and mini strokes of brilliance (because the plot couldn't continue if they didn't) and then they'd go and do something incredibly stupid like stealing an armored truck from a bank when they know the cops are after them--and really, really close--and not even consider that the truck (of course) is trackable. And even though Brown tries to explain away sudden shifts in behavior through plot after the fact, it doesn't really work. Sometimes, too, the characters' reactions to overly narrated dialogue seemed weird. (Sophie gives Langdon "surprised looks" at the stuff that comes out of his mouth, even when it's nothing extraordinary.)

Overall, I'd have to say that despite the fun Indiana Jones-iness of the whole thing, you can do better. I don't know what to recommend instead, but you can do better. If you have to know what happens at the end of this story, go rent the movie. (I say that without having seen the movie, but being of the opinion that in this case, the movie is probably better than the book.)