Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Title/Author: Angelfire (Angelfire #1) by Courtney Allison Moulton
Publisher/Date published: HarperCollins, February 15th 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley
Why I read this book: because ever since I first read the summary I felt the desperate urge to get my hands on it. Oh, and it's a 2011 YA debut, so it fits the challenge :)

If for your 17th birthday someone gave you insight into you being an ancient creature, constantly reborn, who fights off reapers intent on literally dragging your soul to hell, what would you say? No thank you comes to mind.
Unfortunately, Ellie does not have this choice. She is the Preliator, the only mortal who can fight these beings. And she has two kickass swords that light up with angelfire at her will to help her do this. And of course, there's Will, a mysterious boy who knows more about her than she does and who fights alongside with her.
Every time Ellie dies, her soul is reborn, this has been going on for thousands of years. At 17, her powers are awakened and so is her memory of her past lives. But somehow this time it's different, memories come terribly slow.
And Ellie does not have the time to sit around and wait for them to return, because her old enemy Bastian is searching for a creature who may well be able to destroy Ellie's soul once and for all, ending her rebirthing cycle and meaning a tipping of the scales in the war of good against evil.

There has been a lot of angel-YA showing up lately. While Halo wasn't for me, I loved Unearthly and had mixed expectations about this one. And was surprised. Pleasantly so, actually. This one is not about angels in the literal sense of the word, though the reapers can choose to sprout wings.

Ellie is a bit of a reluctant heroine. Sure she understands the need to fight the evil soulconsuming monsters, but does that have to interfere with her social life? There's no easy way to explain to your friends your skipping movienight to hang out with a college-aged guy you've known for 3 days because he's trying to help you remember all your fighting skills.

There's also no easy way to tell you parents exactly why there are clawmarks on the car you just got for your birthday. Or that it's totaled within a week. Needless to say, Ellie's homelife is tense. She constantly has to lie to her parents and friends and does not like it. Her father has been acting strange for a while, he used to be loving and now verbally abuses Ellie every time she runs into him.

***SPOILER, light up to read***
For those who've read it: how much will you bet Ellie's 'father' turns out to be a vir?
***End of spoiler***

What I did not get is that the big baddies had several chances to kill Ellie and didn't. Sure, I get that they want to get rid of her once and for all, but why not finish this rebirth-cycle, search for the real soul reaper and then just lie in ambush when she's reborn? Now she's trying to ruin their plan, it just did not make much sense to me.

A big revelation towards the ending was unexpected and I liked it a lot. I also thought the romance between Will and Ellie was really well done and I'd love to see more of it in the next book. Though it wasn't sitting on the edge of my seat exciting, it was an interesting tale and a great debut.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and can I just say that I hate the books in all these wonderful new series having a year gap between being published?? The wait will kill me for sure..

Rating: 3.5 stars