ANGELFIRE 
 by Courtney Allison Molton 
 453 pgs in the hardcover edition 
 published by HarperCollins, February 2011 
 (as read on NetGalley.com. All opinions are my own.) 
 I must admit, I was hesitant to read a book about Angels. I mean, I know there are a ton of them out there, but Angels? I've read about Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, and a whole host of other otherworldly critters, but something about Angels has the potential to be just weird and sacrilegious, doesn't it? 
 I read so many positive reviews of ANGELFIRE, though, that I was intrigued. So, when I saw it featured on NetGalley, I put my request through and decided to give it a good, fighting chance. 
 Beginning with the plot. 
 ANGELFIRE centers around Ellie, your seemingly typical 17-year old high school girl who loves partying, drinking, and shopping for designer shoes. Sure, she is plagued by terrible nightmares of demons and despairs that chill her to the bone nightly, but who is without a flaw or two here and there? Everything is nice and normal until Ellie meets Will, a mysterious young man who teaches her that she harbors a very special ability. Ellie can see reapers, supernatural monsters who reside in a dimension unnoticed to the human eye -- that is until they break through into our world, kill their victims, and steal their souls for eternal damnation in hell. 
 Not only can Ellie SEE the reapers, but it turns out she can fight them too. Will reveals that although Ellie has not currently regained her full wisdom and memory, she will soon come to realize that her soul is continually reincarnated into human form-- each time with a very distinct purpose. She must kill as many reapers as possible and prevent as many souls as are reachable from descending unnecessarily into Hell. As Ellie comes closer to her 17th birthday -- and the full realization of her power -- she learns that she is being personally hunted by Bastian, the most powerful of the active reapers ... who just so happened to have killed Ellie in a prior reincarnation. 
 With Will as her Guardian, Ellie must save souls, kill monsters, AND somehow manage to still show up to the hottest high school parties in the right pair of shoes. Failure to do so just may mean the end of the world. 
 Although ANGELFIRE was over 400 pages long, I found it to be a pretty quick read. I enjoyed the fact that Ellie continually struggled to assert herself as a normal 17 year old girl -- worrying about how to pass her next exam or how to climb a rung on the social ladder -- even as she explored her new inclination towards supernatural power. Sure, there were a ton of fight scenes, none of which felt particularly tedious as in most novels of this type, but these were intermixed with just as many "high school girl" scenes to provide a nice balance of the two worlds. 
 As in most YA novels, there is definitely a love interest here -- and this one is particularly swoon-worthy, I think. Granted, I'm one of the few human beings on this planet who hasn't yet read Twilight, but I do believe Will might give Edward Cullen a run for his money. Let me read Twilight in the next month or two and I'll get back to you on that. But, the verdict is still not out on this one. 
 Now, were there parts of this novel that just felt weird, creepy, and semi-sacrilegious? Sure. But I still enjoyed the novel and I'm curious to see where she goes with this story. ANGELFIRE was first in a trilogy, and I'm definitely interested in picking up book 2 when it is released (sometime in 2012, I hear... don't have a date or title yet). 
 Overall, I'd call ANGELFIRE exciting, thrilling, and fun. Definitely not the last I'll read by this author.