I'm really trying to find something positive to say about Danielle Trussoni's Angelology, but to be honest, I really can't think of much of anything. Which means this will be a pretty quick review as I'm not much of a fan of belaboring why a bad book is a bad book (realizing of course that "bad" is pretty subjective).
Angelology is the first book in a series detailing the ongoing battle that has raged since the time of Noah between the "Nephilim" (a hybrid race of angels/humans) and humanity. The Nephilim arose when a group of angels--the Watchers--mated with human women. For this, they were imprisoned by God in a deep cavern. The Nephilim, however, remained and at first pretty much enslaved mankind, then when God wiped the Earth clean, one of them snuck aboard the Ark, allowing the race to continue, though now they dominated humanity more behind the scenes as kings and queens and aristocrats, then as the wealthy elite or politically powerful (for instance, they were behind the Nazis). Because the Nephilim, for some reason, have continued to mate with humans, they've tainted their line and are diminishing as a race and individually via sickness. Move to present time and a young nun, Sister Evangeline, who ends up involved in modern day plots by the Nephilim to cure themselves and return to domination and the Angelologists--the group of humans who have opposed them for millennia (Madame Curie, Augustine, and lots of other really famous people). Along with following Evangeline, we flash back to the 1930's and a group of Angelologists that includes Evangeline's grandmother.
The plot is excessively convoluted and often simply fails to make sense. Not in "what is happening" fashion but in the "why is this happening" way. Time and again one finds oneself saying "but wouldn't . . . " or "couldn't they just have . . . " Too many events seem arbitrary, too many motivations are muddy, too many situations are complex for complexity's sake (complexity often highlighted by the often too-simple resolutions that follow).
The mythology and backstories are offered up in clunky exposition--characters reminisce over events in convenient narrative, chronological fashion; lecture (literally) other characters. ask questions they already know the answers to, conveniently overhear expository conversation, read letters and journals.
Few of the characters are compelling; Evangeline is especially weak which is too bad since she carries much of the book. Her male cohort, Verlaine, is equally pale. As for the "villain"--the Nephilim Percival Grigori--it's hard to even think of him as such as because he's so inept. The Nephilim veer from allegedly terrifyingly powerful creatures to the bad guys in Home Alone. When the "big battle" is a group of near-angels taking on a convent of nuns, and the near-angels lose in the space of a few sentences, you know you're in some narrative trouble. The exception is the WWII flashback with Evangeline's grandmother and her rival Celestine (one of the nuns)--here the characters are more alive, though this is tainted both by characters being implausibly oblivious and uncommunicative and by that same clunky exposition.
The book tries to turn into a puzzle quest at the near-end, but it moves solely between absurdly arcane/elaborate and absurdly simple. Afterward, it closes with one of the most muddy and anti-climactic confrontations I've read.
In the end, Angelology falls far short in nearly every element: character, plot, premise, etc. Trussoni has written an acclaimed memoir, but the move to fiction appears to have been a move too far, at least with her first novel. Not recommended
