Librarything / Goodreads
Genre: Paranormal Young Adult (Angels!)
Rating: 4 stars
Pages: 304
Summary: Mercy is an angel with a shattered memory, exiled from heaven for a crime she can’t remember committing. So when she ‘wakes’ inside the body and life of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill, Mercy has only limited recall of her past life. Her strongest memories are of Ryan, the mortal boy who’d begun to fall for her – and she for him.
Mercy soon discovers that circumstances have forced Lela into waitressing at the Green Lantern, a busy city café frequented by suits, cab drivers, strippers, backpackers and the homeless, while caring for her terminally ill mother.
Just as Mercy is adjusting to Lela’s life, her beloved, Luc, reappears in her dreams, and she begins to glimpse her true nature and true feelings for Ryan. What she does not know is that her attempts to contact Ryan may have explosive consequences for everyone around her. Meanwhile, ‘the Eight’ — the angelic beings responsible for her banishment — remain determined to keep Mercy and Luc apart, forever...
Thoughts: Wow, this book was just... lovely. Just as ethereal and otherworldly as the first book in the series, Mercy, albeit not quite on the same epic scale. But even still, it was fantastic. Beautiful and just... lovely.
OK, specifics. Our amnesiac heroine, Mercy, is as tough as ever. This is an angel who may not have any idea who she is, but that hasn't made her weak. She's fearless and strong - she can do anything, except, well, escape her body. She's a protector, not the protectee. Mercy is one of my very favourite YA heroines and she deserves more fans!
While I can still call her an amnesiac, she actually grows a lot more aware of her powers, her history, and her relationships with Luc and Ryan. She becomes more "awake", looking at her situation without the love-spectacles forced on her by Luc. Suddenly things she had never been capable of thinking about - the circumstances that led to her being trapped in mortal bodies, the reasons why Luc actually wants to find her, and her growing feelings for Ryan - become all she can think about.
And while we are only the subject... Ryan. I am so glad Rebecca Lim brought him back for Exile! I fell for him as slowly as Mercy did - it took me up until the last page of Mercy to really start to feel for him. But by the time Exile came around, he was the highlight. This is a guy that fell in love with a body-snatcher while she was wearing the body of an underdeveloped, acne-ridden teen. In other words, he's a diamond in the friggin' rough.
Bottom line? You have to read this series. If you've been let down by other Angel YA, this will restore your faith... literally.
So I read Mercy based on your review and I totally liked it as much as you did. Now I'm trying to hold off on getting Exile but it's soo difficult considering your review makes me want to glomp it right away.
ReplyDelete