Immortal City

Publisher: Penguin (Razorbill)
Pages: 336
Publication Date: April 3, 2012
Type: ARC, won

Jackson Godspeed is the hottest young Angel in a city filled with them.

He's days away from becoming a full Guardian, and people around the world are already competing for the chance to be watched over by him. Everyone's obsessed with the Angels and the lucky people they protect - everyone except for Madison Montgomery.

Maddy's the one girl in Angel City who doesn't breathlessly follow the Angels on TV and gossip blogs. When she meets Jackson, she doesn't recognize him. But Jackson is instantly captivated by her, and against all odds the two fall in love.

Maddy is swiftly caught up in Jackson's scene, a world of glamour, paparazzi - and murder. A serial killer is on the loose, leaving dead Angels' wings for the police to find on the Walk of Fame. Even the Guardians are powerless to protect themselves in the face of this threat & and this time it's up to Maddy to save Jackson.


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This will be a fairly short review, because I really don't have much to say about this novel.  In fact, my opinion of the entire book can essentially be summed up in one sentence:  I loathed almost every single character, but it still managed to entertain me.


The characters were insufferable.  They were all selfish, annoying, idiotic assholes, or so ridiculously one dimensional that it was impossible to take them seriously.  Maddy and Jacks are textbook examples of a PNR romance, and Maddy in particular fits the Mary Sue qualifications to the T.  She's quiet, thinks she's nothing special, is convinced that her great dashing supernatural hero could never love her, yet everyone fawns over her looks and adores her for no evident reason, and the love interest is completely smitten (and must spend the entire book assuring her of this).  Don't even mention Gwen to me.  If you needed any more of a sign that this novel was written by a male, Gwen is all the proof you could ask for.  I won't go into the details, but let's just say that if real girls said "OMG" as frequently as Miss Gwen, I'd have stabbed myself in the ear long ago.


Honestly, the only character I liked was David Sylvester, because he was just a badass.


Despite hating all the characters, though, it must be said that this novel did genuinely entertain me and demand my attention.  The beginning was a bit slow, but once I really got into this, I didn't want to put it down.  It's not that the plot was exceptionally new and complex, or that there was action at every turn, but something about this book made it intensely readable, and I respect that.  While I really despised this novel's casts, it still was, to some extent, an enjoyable read.


So this one earns 3 stars, and a tentative recommendation.  If you're looking for mindless entertainment and can stomach the typical PNR formula, I'd recommend you give it a try.