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Autumn in the City of Angels Autumn Series Volume 1 Kirby Howell Books

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Autumn in the City of Angels Autumn Series Volume 1 Kirby Howell Books

I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to get started on the next one in the series.

Autumn is a teenage girl in the city of Los Angeles when a plague hits, wiping out a huge portion of the population. Everyone she knows is gone and she is alone in her tower penthouse.

That all changes on the day Grey saves her life. But just as quickly as he entered it, he is gone again. He left her with a promise. He would come for her when it was safe. She held on to that promise as she made a new family with a couple of other surviving kids and they struggled to create normalcy.

Then the day came when the bubble they had been living in burst and nothing was safe anymore. A bad group of people were moving in and Autumn found herself in the clutches of yet another group. Only this time, the group included the face of the boy she had only dreamed about seeing again and he may not be who she thought he was.

This book kept me going til the end. The writing was good and I instantly fell in love with Grey and a number of the other characters.

The reason for the four stars is that I thought parts of the book turned a little too weird for me. And I didn't always like Autumn. Sometimes I felt like she had the potential to turn into this kick ass heroine but she didn't. I'm hoping she gets more of a chance to shine in the next book. More of a chance to fight and protect those she loves.

The story itself was fantastic. The writing was organic and funny. The dialogue was good. I want Rissi to be my little sister.

You should check out this series if you're looking for something to get sucked in to. Warning - you may not get anything else done.


Tags : Amazon.com: Autumn in the City of Angels (Autumn Series) (Volume 1) (9780989036405): Kirby Howell: Books,Kirby Howell,Autumn in the City of Angels (Autumn Series) (Volume 1),Streetlights Publishing,0989036405,Dystopian,Juvenile Fiction Dystopian,Science fiction (Children's Teenage)

Autumn in the City of Angels Autumn Series Volume 1 Kirby Howell Books Reviews

I know what you're thinking...
Wait.. Haven't I read this book already?

You might think that, but you would be wrong. Let me explain

All of those things I listed above are true, but I have read other plague books with a really great unique twist that failed miserably for me because of poor execution (I'm looking at you Masque of the Red Death and Dance of the Red Death). Execution was not an issue with Autumn. So why a three-ish four instead of a five... Let's come back to that, first let's go over what I enjoyed.

We begin the book pre-plague with 17 year old Autumn Winters walking across town after school to meet up with her friend for coffee on her way home. This intro to the story gives us a nice baseline of what Autumn's life was like before we are pushed into the post-plague hell zone. And here was the best part, getting to the plague was NOT some drawn out ordeal... It's abrupt and shocking, just like it would have been to Autumn's character. It's also fairly realistic in terms of how people would respond in the event of an emergency.

Autumn is luckier than most and comes from a very privileged family so when she is left all alone she has benefits that many others don't have in their attempts to survive after the plague hits. There is no flaunting of wealth or trying to make her seem more special by having been the daughter of an actress and an architect, but because she is those things it makes her situation more plausible. Her father had designed a safe home for them, yeah, I mean, he's an architect, so that's possible. Her mother was a famous actress from Ireland so, okay, she happens to be beautiful. At least the authors gave a reason for this and didn't just have her miraculously stumble upon a really safe location to hide out for six weeks while the city and world around her was crumbling.

The pacing is good with smallish suspenseful scenes peppered in so that you never have to go very long without something of interest happening. I mean she spends most of her time alone watching movies and listening to music so fortunately there are some small time jumps to show us that although time has passed with little incident we don't have to read about every boring day to understand that loneliness causes Autumn to brave the dangerous world below her safe penthouse. Otherwise, if you have supplies and safety, why the hell would you even venture out in a dangerous world???

When there are action scenes, again the authors keep it realistic. Autumn is a 17 year old girl that has never had martial arts or weapons training, it would be absurd if she just became a survivor badass overnight. So instead, when there is danger, Autumn has to outrun, out smart, and generally out maneuver those that would try to hurt or take advantage of her. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a heroine that can kick the crap out of her enemies, but that's not always an option.I appreciate that the authors didn't try to do that with Autumn's character.

Okay, so back to that why not all the stars thing if they got all of that stuff right???

Here were my issues.
- A triangularly shaped romance. But not really a triangle, because it was a one-sided situation. Girl likes boy, different boy likes girl, object of girl's affection may or may not like girl... I don't know... is a one sided or flat triangle a thing?
The thing that saves this for me is that there is never a time when Autumn is romantically interested in the third side of that flat triangle thing.

- The mysterious love interest. We have lots of questions... and there are hints from early on that he is different...
...
...
On no! RED ALERT!
*crosses fingers - please say he won't sparkle, please say he won't sparkle*
Except he isn't quite that bad.

I'm not gonna lie though, this was the one aspect of the book that cost it all of it's stars.This book is probably in all honesty closer to a three than a four star read for me, but it's my rating and my review so I'll click whichever one I want. I'm not gonna even do the spoiler thingy and tell you what makes our leading man so different and special because I know people can't resist clicking the thing. Had I known this aspect prior to reading, I probably would not have read the book, but I'm glad I didn't know.

- Sometimes our MC comes off as a little too good to be true. I would have liked to have seen her a little more flawed so that there would be opportunity for growth over the course of the series.

Basically, this is a solid debut and an interesting introduction to a new series. I plan to read the next book and look forward to seeing how things turn out for Autumn.
A strange fever wipes out most of the world's population but a few teens band together to stay alive and clash with nearby survivor groups. Throw in some good characters, a highly questionable romance and boom!

I'm not a curmudgeon but reviewing YA dystopian sci-fi/fantasy novels make me feel like one. It's not my fault; I don't expect them to sketch out the fine layers in awkward teen romances but I'm starting to think that everything is a variation on THAT romance. The one between a certain B and E, from a certain series about vampires.

So technically my review gives 4 stars to the premise and ideas, 1.5 to the romance subplot and 2.5 to the execution of everything together.

May contain spoilers!

Things that bothered me

-The premise of this book is BAD APOCALYPSE with some survivors. I couldn't help but recall that terrible movie Skyline about people being trapped in a luxury condo after aliens take over and The Twelve by Justin Cronin in which a survivor camps out in an apartment before leaving (I think...). Plagues and the beginning are well traveled devices and the particular setup where Autumn, (Autumn Winters...eyeroll worthy name) is basically impenetrable from any thieves/murderers/etc lessened any suspense for impending danger. It was kind of a lukewarm effort at making the whole situation seem really bad. Karl "pulsed with beauty and evil"....I had to chuckle at that line. It made me think of cheesy hot-unhot soap villains...

-Instead of setting up a warring society properly or factions with conflict (Enclave did a decent job describing the harshness of survival, fighting, scouting and so forth) the book starts to focus on INSTA-LOVE, the dreaded element that ruins many a book. The Front seem cultish but aside from killing a young boy at the beginning and another minor character, there isn't a lot of interaction with Karl (the leader) nor run-ins with group members. Everything gets tied up neatly in a tidy bundle. Their hideout is discovered but conveniently EVERYONE evacuates before anything terrible happens. OH and they just happen to migrate to a town that has almost unlimited resources, who doesn't mind them going there...AND they just happen to have electric cars to move everyone there without a hitch. OH and any crazy, stupid plans get supplemented by alien with teleportation powers so no real danger. All of these convenient plot points feel amateurish and don't have the cadences of suspense and calm some other YA novels of this genre have.

-Main character HAS to have the "I saw obviously super human or non human attributes but I refuse to believe it even though it's happened MORE THAN once, I have to throw a hissy fit about it and the male doesn't get annoyed but has to appease me." In this way Bella is less annoying. Also not the brightest bulb in the bunch...obviously Grey is a name. Obviously, if you see someone teleport, blow something up and do other things they are not human. When they try to tell you with 100% honesty, you should not freak the f out at them and accuse them of being crazy or lying. That's pure stupidity. FAIL on the stupidity test. Tsk tsk.

-Ah INSTA-LOVE...love at first sight, etc...it may be exhilarating in real life or in romance novels, but it's irritating in YA dystopian novels. There's nothing worse than someone obsessing and mooning over a guy she's met ONCE, doesn't know how he looks like when lots of other things are more important, like...not getting killed, raped, injured...things being on fire, running out of supplies. Granted, Autumn acknowledges this but it doesn't stop her from noticing how damned hot Grey is every other paragraph. Sure he's "out of this world," but the constant barrage of OMG SO PERFECT AND HANDSOME was just insufferable. Please, as superficial as people are in general - I'm sure they don't think about this when their lives and futures are being threatened. Oh and the icing on the cake when he tells her he basically fell for her when he saw her! PERFECT mutual insta-love. Also, Grey has the most generic perfect personality - he's like Edward in a way. He kind of stalks her at the beginning without her knowing...and of course Autumn becomes obsessed right away.

The thing that is the most fake for me in these things is that believable love develops through ACTIONS, PLOT and a STORY. It's not shown through telling the audience when characters keep saying it overtly. That's just empty. Of notable YA series of recent, couples go through hardships, they go through situations where one or the other gets hurt or something is on the line for them and yet they persevere through them thereby REVEALING through situations in a naturalistic way love. INSTA-LOVE is an artificial, forced romantic subplot that makes basically no sense. Why would a 300 year old alien fall in love with a random girl? Like, what wise story basis is there? Other than appearances of course. Sure Autumn gets credits for being more caring than some heroines but he wouldn't have known that the MOMENT HE SAW HER. She shows to be loyal and brave eventually, but that INSTA-LOVE nonsense happened way before that. Grey is also pretty generic...he's a gentleman, he's perfect, he's hawt - she sees him and falls in love because he's so hawt and helped her. That's weak. It fails the profound test of worthwhile romance.

***

In conclusion, because the main character fails my test for stupidity and the romantic subplot fails at romance I docked 2 stars. I'd say about a third of the book is written in a way that tells instead of shows (I feel like it could have handled Autumn knowing Ben likes her better rather than "I KNOW HE HAS A CRUSH ON ME SO I AVOIDED HIM.") but I enjoyed some of the action and I couldn't exactly predict what would happen. A lot of the dystopian parts were weak and tame, lacked development and there wasn't enough suspense but overall not a bad read. I look for grittier world collapses and more brainy characters though so I will pass on the rest.
I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to get started on the next one in the series.

Autumn is a teenage girl in the city of Los Angeles when a plague hits, wiping out a huge portion of the population. Everyone she knows is gone and she is alone in her tower penthouse.

That all changes on the day Grey saves her life. But just as quickly as he entered it, he is gone again. He left her with a promise. He would come for her when it was safe. She held on to that promise as she made a new family with a couple of other surviving kids and they struggled to create normalcy.

Then the day came when the bubble they had been living in burst and nothing was safe anymore. A bad group of people were moving in and Autumn found herself in the clutches of yet another group. Only this time, the group included the face of the boy she had only dreamed about seeing again and he may not be who she thought he was.

This book kept me going til the end. The writing was good and I instantly fell in love with Grey and a number of the other characters.

The reason for the four stars is that I thought parts of the book turned a little too weird for me. And I didn't always like Autumn. Sometimes I felt like she had the potential to turn into this kick ass heroine but she didn't. I'm hoping she gets more of a chance to shine in the next book. More of a chance to fight and protect those she loves.

The story itself was fantastic. The writing was organic and funny. The dialogue was good. I want Rissi to be my little sister.

You should check out this series if you're looking for something to get sucked in to. Warning - you may not get anything else done.