Tag Archives: Angels and Demons

Review: Breakup From Hell by Ann Davila Cardinal

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Breakup from Hell by Ann Davila Cardinal

Breakup From Hell
Ann Davila Cardinal
HarperTeen
Published January 3, 2023

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About Breakup From Hell

Miguela Angeles is tired. Tired of her abuela keeping secrets, especially about her heritage. Tired of her small Vermont town and hanging out at the same places with the same friends she’s known forever. So when another boring Sunday trip to church turns into a run-in with Sam, a mysterious hottie in town on vacation, Mica seizes the opportunity to get closer to him.

It’s not long before she is under Sam’s spell and doing things she’s never done before, like winning all her martial arts sparring matches—and lying to her favorite people. The more time Mica spends with Sam, the more weird things start to happen, too. Like terrifying-visions-of-the-world-ending weird.

Mica’s gut instincts keep telling her something is off, yet Sam is the most exciting guy she’s ever met. But when Mica discovers his family’s roots, she realizes that instead of being in the typical high school relationship, she’s living in a horror novel.

She has to leave Sam, but will ending their relationship also bring an end to everything she knows and everyone she loves?

Clever, hilarious, and steeped in supernatural suspense, BREAKUP FROM HELL will keep you hooked until the last page.

My Review

This was a fun book to read. It’s got some suspense– the world may literally end if Mica and her friends can’t figure out how to stop it. But it’s also got a lot of fun banter between friends, a best friends to lovers thread, and a powerful main character with a strong connection to her mom and grandmother.

BREAKUP FROM HELL is set in a small Vermont town, which I also really liked. It feels very much like a small New England place, with a small downtown area filled with interesting shops and some surrounding farmland. I liked the way the story used the landscape at different points. It was kind of funny to see this quaint little town erupt with apocalyptic events.

I really liked the relationships between Mica and her friends, especially Zee and Rage. They were a loyal friend group with a very can-do approach to things. They stuck together and needed each other in order to piece everything together. I also loved Mica’s relationship with Abuela. They didn’t always see eye to eye, but they both loved each other so much, and ultimately wanted the best for one another. I thought Abuela’s notes on the fridge were fantastic.

All in all, I thought BREAKUP FROM HELL was a fun read, perfect for fans of paranormal books like BITTERWINE OATH by Hannah West.

Content Notes for Breakup From Hell

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Mica is Puerto Rican.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Mica learns that the boy she’s been dating has dark powers and dark spiritual connections. Some characters have supernatural abilities. Some items also have supernatural abilities. Evil creatures can’t come onto the sacred ground of a church or chapel. Mica and her friend witness an evil sacrifice.

Violent Content
Mica and her friend witness an evil sacrifice of a deer. Situations of peril. Brief battle violence. A powerful weapon vanquishes an evil character, turning them to ash.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of BREAKUP FROM HELL in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Battle of Beings by Nita Tarr

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Battle of Beings by Nita Tarr
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When Gregory finds himself the winner of a large lottery, he knows there’s only one thing he wants to do with the winnings. He will travel to the Congo to help children. Greg and his two friends make the long journey together, but when they finally reach the mission, something isn’t right. The mission director acts suspiciously, and the children are simply too quiet. Greg and his team need to find out what’s really happening to the children at the mission and rescue them. Greg isn’t acting alone, though. All around and unseen, angels aid his efforts, waging war against a legion of demons who would stop at nothing to destroy every child in the mission.

I liked the way Tarr brought the story into the jungles of Africa. It was a fresh setting that definitely shined through the story. Greg and Jenny were a really cute couple, and some of their antics made me laugh – perhaps even ones that were supposed to be serious, though? I’m not sure.

As for the rhythm of the story itself, I felt like I was reading an early draft. There were characters and scenes that really weren’t well-integrated into the story as a whole. Scenes felt choppy. Characters were, at times, unbelievable. For instance, in one scene an angel character is having a conversation with Jesus and Jesus is clarifying that he indeed made up this word or that idea (all the ideas, because he’s God) and I felt like, the angel has been around for a long time. I couldn’t see him still wondering, hey, did Jesus make that up? Because surely it’s not the first time he’s thought about it after all this time?

On the whole, a lot of the story was interesting. It had a pretty solid plot. The Christian elements are pretty deep, and sometimes written in that sort of church-speak that some readers may find inaccessible. Readers with some familiarity with other novels featuring angels and demons may find this story most interesting and easy to follow.

Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
A boy grabs a girl’s chest and pressures her for sex. She tells him he’s crazy and begins to pray for him.

Spiritual Content
Angels and demons are characters in the story and behave according to Christian ideas. Jesus makes an appearance, having conversations with angels on top of clouds and later disguising himself as a human and participating in a fighting ring. Demons control humans, causing them to harm one another. Prayer and angelic warfare casts them out and returns the human to his or her normal self.

Violence
A creepy guy wears a necklace with human pinky fingers strung on it. Children are forced to take up guns and participate in an army led by a warped man. Giant spiders attack people in the jungle. Angels use swords to fight demons. Demons use canes and other weapons.

Drug Content
None.

Review: My Totally Awkward Supernatural Crush by Laura Toffler-Corrie

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, ,

My Totally Awkward Supernatural Crush
Laura Toffler-Corrie
Roaring Brook Press/Holtzbrinck Publishing
Published August 20, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Babysitting the neighborhood terror, David Lipski, is enough to give any girl nightmares, but when the handsome hero who comes to her rescue waltzes out of Jenna’s dreams and into a server’s uniform at Cowboy Clem’s, it’s got to be too good to be true, right? Luke has the face of an angel. And that’s exactly what he is. He’s been sent to earth with a mission – to guard and protect the family heirloom necklace Jenna’s just been given as a birthday gift. If Adam, a boy serving darker powers, gets his hands on the necklace, he’ll bend its power to his will and use it to rule earth. Along with a tirelessly devoted neighbor and her young babysitting charge, Jenna embarks on a wild adventure to stop the forces of evil from swiping the tacky necklace and destroying the world as she knows it.

The story is packed with quirky characters and light-hearted humor, though there are several brief references to bodily functions. The unconventional use of angel and demon characters made the story unique, but left the story-world somewhat disjointed. Both Jenna’s parents seem remarkably disconnected from their daughter’s life. While Jenna doesn’t spend a lot of emotional energy on her family either, she often speaks rudely about her family members. The romance between Luke and Jenna develops nicely and remains clean, making this a good choice as a romantic story for new teen readers.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild word choice and frequency.

Sexual Content
Very brief kissing. Jenna tries not to think about sex in front of the boy who can read her mind. No additional details are specified.

Spiritual Content
Though the story features angels and demons, neither appear connected with God or Christian context in any way. Instead, the two are mortal enemies somehow thrust into the human world by the alignment of planets at the equinox.

Violence
Very brief fighting and description of someone stabbed to death. No graphic content.

Drug Content
Jenna asks her parents if a person could talk to an angel. Her mother offers that someone taking crack might have this experience.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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