Lions & Lambs: Book Review: Strange Angels Series by Lili St. Crow

Title: Strange Angels (Books 1-5)

Genre: YA Paranormal

Spoilers: Nahhhh . . . not really.

Overview:

Dru Anderson wakes up each morning with one goal: to survive another day. She has what her grandmother called “the touch”. This comes in handy when you are traveling across the country with your dad, hunting ghosts, wolves, vampires, and the occasional zombie. Now that her dad has entered the zombie category, Dru has a choice to make: Does she kill him for good or allow him to live undead and kill her and everyone in his path? With her mom gone, her dad a vampire and her best friend a werewolf, she has since learned her own blood is not entirely human.

It's a good thing Dru Anderson is quick on her feet, because the people (and I use this term very loosely) chasing her are not slowing down, and one vampire in particular will not stop until he has her blood on his incisors. When her best friend is captured, Dru’s worst fears have come true. She doesn’t think twice when she sets out to bring him back in one piece, at any cost. Dru’s training kicks into overdrive when she is face-to-face with her best friend’s tormentor and her mother’s traitor.

My Opinion:

If you can just hold my hand through this, we’ll all be okay. Strange Angels is, hands-down, one of my favorite paranormal YA series. Dru, Graves, and (okayyeahI’lladmit) Christophe are amazing characters you can get lost in. Although Lili St. Crow is not an amateur author by any means of the word, from Strange Angels (Book 1) to Reckoning (Book 5), you can feel—not just read—the growth of the author in the characters.

Throughout all of these books, I was holding my breath until the end . . . and in the end the whoosh of breath I exhaled was out of awe and frustration, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Dru is, for lack of a better phrase, a certified ass kicker. And you know what? It’s about friggin’ time. Throughout several YA dystopian novels we see strong heroines who kick ass without bothering to take names. But I have found this is rare in the paranormal genre. Sure, the main female characters are essentially strong in their own right, but Dru is simply a sharp diamond in the center of fragile glass. She’s tough, but she has her moments when you wonder if she’s finally going to break. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good love story. Strange Angels has this element, but survival is at the forefront of everything.

Now. Let me get into the reason why I was awed and frustrated at the ending without giving away said ending. Although there is an epilogue, we never really find out what happens! Oh. My. Stars. I don’t even . . . I just . . . what in the world . . . can we just have a min—noooooooo! A book series that has an open-ending drives me insane. But even now, long after I have finished the series, I’m still thinking about it. Well played, Miss St. Crow. Well played.