A Brush with Angels: Compelling Tales of Biblical Proportion

MicDaddy Jesus never doubted God. Jesus was left in darkness by God because He carried the sins of the whole world. There is a very big difference between doubting and asking God "why" Flag femi on February 27, General Comment I've read through a few comments here and it seems to me that alot of people are way off what I think is the most obvious interpretation of this song. Based on my own experience from growing up with psychic and physical abuse from my fosterfather, it hits me right away how similar these lines are to what I would hear.

The verse perfectly nails the terror, pressure and intensity from the father's frustration and rage, who's blaming his child for his abusive behaviour you wanted to. A child growing up in an environment like this is not likely to be able to realize the wrongs of his father, and is more likely to adapt to his fathers blames and start accusing himself, feeling shameful about it and hiding it, thinking that whatever happens is something he deserves, becoming self-destructive When angels deserve to die.

Now this also seems familiar to me. He have though, due to his childhood and his fathers mockery, developed a behaviour that would make him vulnerable in any social situation, and he would easily find himself being the victim of abuse in school or to anyone who would want to boast upon him. I believe this compares to how he tries in vain to live up to his fathers demands in a similar manner to how he feels that he commends his spirit in vain to the bible. He felt guilty and self-righteous about it, and certainly felt he deserved to die.

I get chills whenever I hear this song, because it is, at least the way I see it, a extremely sad story. This song becomes really interesting if you're able to see how the concept is true on so many levels, and not only in the home of domestic violence, although one of the brilliant things about lyrics like these, is how they are open for your personal interpretation. Flagged fkkinelena on November 04, You're a Gatekeeper Flag lildevious on September 18, Song Meaning The song is about suicide.

Another commenter noted that the song was originally called "Suicide" but the record company made them change it. I was thinking about that So what did they do? They "chopped" the word in half so you just had "Sui" or "suey" for phonetics sake. The exclamation point, in my opinion, was icing on the cake saying to the record company, "look, we did what you told us, we made a happy! You can hear either the drummer or lead say "okay.. Suicide" like he's giving the cue,"okay, we're going to play this song now. But any other way that you can die, is okay. Why can't someone be saved AND commit suicide?

So you have this guy, putting make-up on what I think, are cutting scars on his arm. The first stanza describes what he goes through to keep this hidden. Maybe he uses a swiss army knife on his keychain or the keys themselves to cut. Second stanza, he's replaying what he does and other's responses over in his head like: Why are you using make-up? I wanted to Other: Why are you putting it on your arms?

Uh why did you leave your keys on the table? Shit, I have to think of a reason for me to have left them there create another fable. The next part, he's being a little sarcastic when he says "trust in my self-righteous suicide" and that it makes him cry to think that just because "I'm depressed, why does that make me deserving to die and not go to heaven? At the end, I think he's praying. He's asking God to save him "I commend my spirit. He feels forsaken because the Creator will let everyone else into heaven, who commends their spirit to Him as long as they don't kill themselves.

That's the only caveat Be saved and commit suicide, you're screwed. That's just me personally I'm interested to see what other people think of my interpretation.

No Replies Log in to reply. General Comment I have read a lot of interpretations on this song, and many off them are deep and logical, but I have yet to find a single explanation that covers every aspect of the lyrics. I tried to take the song very directly and make conclusions on what I heard. The beginning of this song talks about a person who is trying to cover up their problems so that everyone else thinks that they are totally fine. We know that the person is going through hard times because they talk about how he wants to hide "scars" to fade away the "shake up" fight.

We see that the person is trying to hide it on the outside grab a brush and put on a little make-up, hide the scars Now, the speaker states that others don't understand his self-righteous suiside. Of course they wouldn't understand, they just see his outside, not his cold, troubled inside. Now for the "father" stanza. Apparently this is a quote from Jesus before he died for us on the cross, but I don't think that this stanza actually refers to Jesus. First off, I m positive that the speaker is talking to God, not his dad, because if he is going to die, why and how could he command his spirit to his dad, it just doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I think that the the speaker is angry at God for bringing him so much misfortune, hence the "Why have you forsaken me Living day in and day out having to hide a secret from the rest of the world that keeps bitting him in the rear end. Sounds like a pretty sad life if you ask me.

I think that he is handing over his spirit to God now in hopes that God can bring him a sort of peace. For the "Why'd you leave the keys up on the table" line, I think that this symbolizes that the speaker although I don't know if he is the one who actually quoted this has given up on his life. You see, keys give you access to your home, to that vast majority of you.

Leaving them somewhere kind of hints that he doesn't care enough to keep track of his own lifeline, that he has left them for someone to find. I totaly agree with this interpretation thanks Flag jasperhale69 on November 08, Flag infowarior on August 21, ROCKER your interpertation of this song is spot on but going deeper into "whyd You put the keys up on the table" verse. Flag Amandacaprioli on February 09, General Comment This song is about suicide! General Comment Ok, this probably means absolutely shit to all of you but after reading the Book of Nod, me and my friend have a theory on what it could mean.

We think it refers to the biblical story of Cain[e]. Allow me to explain Cain was a fruit farmer, his brother Abel was a cattle farmer Cain would sacrifice his best fruit, Abel would sacrifice his best cows. God was displeased with Caine, because he gave so much less than his brother. This could also be a reference to religious fanatics. Cain actually was forsaken by God, that was part of his punishment. So there you have it. Maybe this isnt the intended meaning of the song if it DOES have an intended meaning at all,which I'm starting to doubt: Don't get me wrong though, I'm not insisting that I'm right, I'm just putting in my 2 cents and thinking maybe, to someone, it's worth reading.

It could be about some young girl being abused by her father.. Those are both very interesting takes on it, but I think it mostly has to do with a person that wants to commit suicide because they are forsaken because of their change of beliefs, and they also can't deal with the dullness of a very fast routine.

I elaborate more on it on the very last comment 41st page, all the way down Flag AZilla on November 22, General Comment Okay, this song is starting to make sense to me, it is in fact about the Armenian genocide, but it's riddled with metaphors and allusions. The first verse can be interpreted literally about being about a suicidal person hiding the fact they are self harming, but in the broader sense it gives the feeling of being in a hurry, being in an emergency, but you are still caught up in doing little mundane tasks, liking putting on makeup and looking for car keys.

I think this is about people panicking, not realizing that they are about to be forced away from their homes forever if they don't die. The heavy rifting sounds remnant of a military attack.

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Maybe time the verse is literal, the second time it's the day of the attack, signified by the screamed DI Now, for the chorus, I think the one, suicide isn't literal just as it wasn't literal last verse, and by "I" he means "we". I think self-righteous suicide refers to general martyrdom, not suicide bombing. See, with martyrdom one is responsible for their death because they refuse to compromise their faith, and it's self righteous because the matyr believes they are doing a righteous deed.

Now, the importance of I being we is that it extends it to the whole Armenian people. Now, the genocide was an ethic cleansing delivered by the Ottoman, and like most ethnic tension their is difference in religion, here the Ottoman being Muslim and the Armenians being christian. That's what makes the genocide a martyrdom. The angels deserving to die refers to all the innocent lives that were shed during the tragedy, the verse appears to be about a priest or someone asking how such a tragedy could happen to such a righteous people? Also, the deserving to die part might reflect the lack of attention given to the massacre.

With the next verse the idea of martyrdom is reiterated by alluding to Jesus's crucifixion. The "why have you forsaken me" part refers to how even though the Armenians believed they were righteous they found no deliverance. In the end I think the song can be summed up by saying that the Armenians were killed for their beliefs just like the Jews were in the holocaust, but no one gave a damn about the Armenians. The Turks continue to deny the tragedy to this day. You are on some kind of amazing level. This helped me so much. To show my gratitude, you get a cookie.

I did not make the connection to Serg being Armenian by descent until you posted this. Flag Furball on October 18, Not genocide, this song is about Suicide - this was made clear in interview and was even the original title. Genocide and suicide are not concepts that you'd put together - martyrdom yes, but thats not what genocide is about at all. There is no choice there. Also I think to read every song of theirs or anyone through the lens of their ethnicity is problematic. Armenians can write about genocide, but they also don't have to do so every single time you know. It's a limiting way to look at the work of any artist.

Flag blackaliss on March 12, I addressed all the stuff about suicide. Anyway, this song was clearly meant to be read through the eyes on Armenian ethnicity considering the Armenian flag is thrown during the music video, and some of it's lyrics were allegedly taken from a poem by Father Armeni. Flag Ganondox on March 12, Ganondox Yes I did read it and I said I disagree When you're commenting on things I've already addressed as if I didn't know about it, you're just being ignorant.

And I explained why. By the way not every song and video are parallel. See Bjork's Hunter, which many people think is about Ricardo Lopez because of its video but the song was not written about him as explained by Bjork herself. Also chill, not everyone has to agree with you. You down voted this the moment I commented, like a knee jerk. You need to accept not everyone will agree with you about everything. I was not disrespectful to you yet your only explanation for why someone might disagree is because they didn't read your comment beyond the first line.

It's just a song interpretation site and I'm a stranger you don't need to take it so serious. You can down vote as much as you want I did not find your arguments convincing that's not gonna change.

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Just chill seriously wow.. I am not engaging with this any more - you don't know who I am. I could very well be Armenian and a scholar with a Phd or a friend of someone in the band But you call me ignorant because I don't agree with you. More than one of the above is true by the way. The one who needs to chill is the one who made four comments in a row expressing frustration about being downvoted. Ganondox This is the best interpretation I've read about this song. It covers all the bases and actually makes sense. I always assumed it was about a suicide bomber, but that didn't address all the lyrics, just a couple lines.

This entire song as a whole makes sense when viewed through the lens of the Armenian Genocide. Obviously not every song they make is about their heritage, however, they are known for being "political" in some songs. And let's face it, this is one of their most powerful songs. Flag no1gotshot on April 07, Ganondox And how you saw any resemblance to the Armenian genocide out of this is beyond me.

In, my, self righteous suicide Is oxygen moronic statement in light of the over all context. The written knows this. The Armenian Holocaust was responsible for about 1. Hitler almost ruled the World. It's not that no one cared it was the magnitude of it. There are genocides going on today. The Holocaust was noted because it was the worst one known to man. That one might stick out in my mind more because it directly effected me in the sense I never knew my grandfather who was a Japanese POW Flag KingTrips on December 27, Ganondox "In an interview, Daron Malakian explained, "The song is about how we are regarded differently depending on how we pass.

Hence the line, 'I cry when angels deserve to die'. The lyric passages 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit' and 'why have you forsaken me? Oxymoronic describes self righteous suicide. Sharp but dull seeing how you don't know the term and are to lazy to look it up. You are stupid and just plain moronic. This band is Armenian American You just wrote that about the Armenian holocaust that happened in so you can suck a penis. The only thing you had right was they went after Christians and Turkey denies it BUT that fact has nothing to do with this song as I have proven you wrong again.

KingTrips as if they could say that they meant Muslim genocide againt Christianity. Considering Muslimphilic hysteria in Western world. Your points are pathetic and don't stand the criticism. Everything in the song points at Armenian genocide, even Serj in his songs and interviews later pointed that he always wanted and tried to raise awareness about this genocide. I understand and respect other's opinions, until they try to shove it in everyone's mouth. How about you do it instead? Would serve your personality well. Flag Wes13 on May 25, General Comment Metaphorically the song could mean anything, but if you take the song literally it can only mean one thing, that is It's someone expressing how he feels about what happened to the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch.

Here it is explained: Log in now to add this track to your mixtape! More System of a Down Lyrics. SongMeanings is a place for discussion and discovery. Login with Facebook Error: Login with Google Error: User does not exist. So I'm not going to tear into it and lose my temper and imagine that with each punchy sentence and angry jab, I'm stabbing the author in the face.

I'm going to do what I do when any other child proudly shows me their work with a big corny grin. I won't lie but I won't be mean either. The cover art is lovely, Adornetto, and I really like how you managed to get all the print onto the page! So there you are. She's a teenage girl. Sure the book pretty much sucks beyond all reckoning but I like to think I'm adult enough to give her a pat on the head, tell her to go play with the other kids while I talk to the adults.

But that doesn't mean I want to spend money on this shit View all 61 comments. Jun 28, Cait rated it did not like it Shelves: Honestly, I think when I read this book, my brain cells died a little bit. First of all, Bethany is a total idiot and is so clueless that I don't know how she even remembered to breathe when she woke up every morning. It's all a dr Honestly, I think when I read this book, my brain cells died a little bit. It's all a dream; you don't need anything!

That's not even an over-exaggeration people; this is one idiot narrator. She doesn't even know what freaking toothpaste is for, or how to even brush her teeth! And her boyfriend has to remind her to drink water because she can't possibly remember that herself. Then, to add insult to injury, every other page she gets those "cramps" in her chest whenever she's far away from her hubby.

You know what those pains really are Bethany? I'm not really sorry to inform you, but those pains in your chest are more than likely mini heart attacks that will lead to one major one that ends your pathetic life. So you should probably go to the hospital tomorrow, as long as you remember to breathe next morning and don't die that way first. And what the hell pun half intended is up with the name Bethany?

Even her lust love interest Xavier has a more angelic name than she does! I honestly don't think it's that hard to come up with a more angelic name than that, anything than that. It took me about two seconds to go online, type angelic names, and find these names of some actual female angels although some debate whether female angels exist, but just for argument's sake, lets assume that there is: Gazardiel Wasn't that easy, folks! Sadly, Bethany never says she has a different name, and that's what she was given by God, so obviously Adornetto didn't have the foresight to think that up.

I guess the poor guy upstairs has just been around too long to care about what he names his angels, who just aren't that important anyways, right? While we're talking about upstairs, may I just say that Adornetto failed in describing it and the angels who I guess floated around up there. From what I've read in the Bible, whenever people meet angels and see their true forms they are completely, totally, and utterly terrified and the angels have to calm them down.

The way Adornetto describes them, as big floating balls of light or essence or whatever isn't exactly terrifying. If an angel came down from heaven whose name was Bert and said "do not be afraid" as a big ball of light, I'd probably snigger and then one of my younger cousins would think it's a huge firefly and trap it in a jar. Then I'd have to tell the poor fella to let Bert go, because he has more important angelic things to do, like watch himself glow.

Bert's back to play! Coming back to how she described Heaven, I guess you could say more like the lack of description. Yay, a lot of puffy clouds, so it must be Heaven! Her description of it reminds me of my little sister. We have a town near us that ends in "haven" but my sister-being only five-thought it said "heaven" so whenever we got close to the sign of it on the highway, she'd go, "are we in heaven yet? That's how it is with Adornetto; it's kind of cute that she tried not even nearly as adorable as my sister , but she just missed the mark.

See, even the puppy agrees with me!

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It's just a no, Adornetto. You can't argue with the cute. While we're still on the topic of Adornetto's heaven I'd honestly be pretty scared if Bethany was my guide to Heaven since that's what she describes her job as. She'd probably pick up my little ball of light and let it slip through her fingers and I'd fall back through clouds. That's probably why she got sent down to Earth to find all of the little balls of light that she dropped, the klutz. Yeah, I kind of hate this chick. Since we're on the whole mission subject, there's one big thing that I don't understand: Throughout history there is one main constant during war: You just do not send someone with the strength like Gabriel supposedly has to somewhere like that.

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And he didn't even do anything! He just "learned to be a human" How does learning to be a human have anything to do with saving the world from darkness, exactly! I mean if that's all it took I could just learn to slither around like a snake, be high and mighty like a cat, totally ignorant to the what's going on around like a dog, and become the President of the United States.

I take that back; she has no sense at all. Another proof of her having no sense is the whole stinking ending. I mean, wow, how Their lurve is so high for each other that it burns so bright through Bethany that it saves the day! She couldn't have done it without him, who is supposedly a normal human, and she obviously couldn't escape the bonds herself, because only twu lurve conquers all! Okay, Bethany is all weak for a little while because of her new human body because balls of light are so strong, too , but you can only use that excuse for so long and by the time she's kidnapped, I think she should have at least been able to break out of them herself.

Sadly, that's not what happened because, according to Adornetto, that would make Bethany seem too strong and girls aren't able to do anything, not even think, without a big, capable guy like Xavier by her side! That's too much feminism for her! Not even Gabriel could have done it, who is higher up in the ladder in Heaven than Jake Thorn is in Hell, only Xavier could, our loser hewo!

It just annoyed me so badly I think I screamed when it was over out of sheer frustration. This quote from the synopsis really bothered me, especially one specific part. If you guessed "luminous glow" you're right! I understand that they might have to slightly strain themselves to hide the rest, heck, if I was an angel I'd probably have a mini-romance with my gorgeous wings, but their luminescence?

Unless they have no self control I don't think it's that hard to hide light. They'd be and they were pretty awful undercover agents if they can't snuff out a simple light. It's not like in Unearthly which is everything Halo isn't where she can't tell when she's going to suddenly burst into light, these guys in Halo just have a soft, cutsey little light that shouldn't require that much strain; they're heavenly beings, they should probably have enough control if they were picked for this!

And don't even get my started on the "avoiding all human attachments" part. If you can't tell from the rest of my review; that's the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard. Curse stupid plots that don't make any sense. Xavier and Bethany's "love" was what really got me. Since Adornetto once again didn't study up on angelic lore, I'll fill you guys in: If you're an angel, God is your one and only love and if you even get slight feelings for anyone else, well, God is a jealous dude and will banish your sorry ass from Heaven for the rest of your existence.

So, in all actuality, the very second that Bethany even felt the teeny tiniest feelings of like or love for Xavier, God would have stripped her of her wings and banished her. Then Bethany would have had to spend the rest of eternity pouting and not realizing why she did what she did was so, like, wrong! I guess not even the big man upstairs wanted to curse Earth with that and just let her do whatever the hell she wanted, even reveal her true identity to Xavier!

If God gave her a name like Bethany, he's probably too busy with the rest of the Berts and Jim-Bobs getting trapped in jars around the Earth to notice such a huge infraction. I think I'm going to be sick again. I have a question. Why were all of the angels in this story only white? It kind of reminds me of how many churches and television shows picture Jesus: If I remember correctly from the Bible, he was born in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and whether or not you believe he was Christ, just a prophet, a crazy person, or someone that never even existed, if he had been born in that region of the world, he definitely wasn't white.

He would have had much darker skin and pretty much what you see when you look at your average middle-eastern man today. The only reason he went all Michael Jackson when you see pictures and such of him now is the church and the racist sentiments of people during that time. They couldn't possibly imagine the person they viewed to be their savior as, in their opinion, some dirty, savage, middle-eastern man, so in order to make him more popular with the rest of Europe and spread the religion they turned him white.

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So, if God's own son wasn't white, what's to say the angels up in heaven aren't from multiple races? I think it's just very closed-off of Adornetto to only make the angels that we have seen thus far white. Would it kill her to make even some part of her book good? Not all people in this world who are right and just are white people.

And that can be proven by just walking down the street of wherever you live, so for her not to include people of other races as angels just makes her seem very naive about how the world actually works. I'll finish the rest of this review later when it's not almost one in the morning. But, yeah, I hated this book with a passion. View all 49 comments. Jun 03, Kogiopsis rated it did not like it Shelves: Halo is a truly epic tale. Set in a dystopian world which has been ravaged by war, it follows two people: Bethany, an angel sent to riot-torn Los Angeles to save as many of the remaining citizens as she can and Xavier, a damaged boy she struggles to befriend and heal of his emotional wounds.

As she works, another war is brewing - this one highly localized and poised to set the city ablaze yet again, ruining all of her efforts. Oh, no, wait, that's not it. Let me try again Halo Halo is a truly epic tale. It's the story of Bethany, an angel sent to the most distressed areas of the world to destroy demons, and her sidekick Xavier, a young would-be priest who follows in her wake spreading the word of the Lord and doing good wherever he can. Together, they defeat evil time and time again.

No, wait, that's not it either. Third time's the charm and all that. Halo is the less-than-inspiring story of a trio of angels who are, for some bizarre reason, sent to a posh little town called Venus Cove. There they live the lives of the rich and self-righteous, doing little real good except some volunteering. The plot follows one of them, Bethany, on her meandering and melodramatic way into a romance with a human boy named Xavier. Eventually some real conflict shows up, several hundred pages too late to make the book any good, but that's okay; as the author makes clear several times when she gets up on her soapbox, this book wasn't written to have any sort of artistic merit!

It's really just here to preach at you and take your money. Yeah, that's the right one. Well, my friends, I was wrong. Within the space of a few chapters, I hated Halo more than I have ever hated a story. This book is a disaster from start to finish, quite literally - from the poor grasp on perspective demonstrated on the very first page to the clumsy, imbecilic, tacked-on 'cliffhanger' on the very last.

To be honest, though, I feel sorry for Alexandra Adornetto. Clearly, the girl's got some problems. Her depiction of girls as obsessed with sex, boys, and material goods is horrifyingly shallow, which suggests to me that she's never really had any close female friends. At one point he literally picks up her fork and flies food into her mouth like an indulgent parent. And I'm not really going to touch on the strange view she has of her own religion, or the way she twists it to condemn large swathes of modern society.

Or the entitlement complex she demonstrates again and again throughout this book, seeming completely oblivious to poverty, disease, and real strife. Also, if she ever grows up and becomes a decent writer, which I suppose is still possible at this point, this book will hang around her neck like a rock. You know those things you wrote when you were a few years younger and less mature, the ones that are cringe-worthy when you look back on them now?

This will be hers, except it got published and now everyone can see it. To be fair, this wreck is not just her fault. Her parents, who are supposedly English teachers, have failed her here: They've also neglected to teach her the cardinal rule of writing anything: No editor with real respect for their work and for fiction should have let this book be published in this state. Cheap hacks looking to make a buck off of Edward Cullen fangirls, yes. But a real editor should have at the very least forced this through many intense revisions until something which vaguely resembled a proper novel was extruded.

Reading this book makes me wonder what editors are getting paid for these days. But enough about the people behind the book. Let's talk about the book itself: Portrayal of love "It seemed from my reading of literature that being in love meant becoming the beloved's entire world. The rest of the universe paled into insignificance compared to the lovers. When they were separated, each fell into a melancholy state, and only when they were reunited did their hearts start beating again. Only when they were together could they really see the colors of the world. When they were apart, that color leached away, leaving everything a hazy gray.

This is not love. And frankly, it's a scary thing to read about. What's scarier is that here it's being shown as an ideal - indeed, this exact phenomenon is highlighted in a relationship which is supposed to be so pure and awesome that it's sanctioned by Heaven. When Xavier doesn't talk to Bethany for a few days, she goes into a withdrawal depression so deep that she loses a drastic amount of weight and ends up looking haggard. In just a few days. Is she really so incomplete as a person that she can't be healthy without him?

One must then ask what the message here is - that a woman not in a relationship is not a whole human being? Note that Xavier, of course, is barely affected by their split, because of course only females handle this so badly. I hereby direct you to Man Down: Of course, one of the reasons is that women tend to have better support systems, which Bethany does not. But I'll probably bring up Bethie and her terrible communication skills later. Ridiculously privileged protagonists "In his physical form, Gabriel might as well have been a classical sculpture come to life.

His body was perfectly proportioned and each muscle looked as if it had been sculpted out of the purest marble. Like Gabriel, she had piercing rain gray eyes. No, really, it's said straight out several times - they have no flaws. They're gorgeous, talented, have access to all the knowledge of humankind and more, have magical wings which somehow manage to fold up and sit flat on their backs despite the fact that wings proportionally sized to carry their body weight should probably stretch from over their shoulders to their lower calves even when furled , are infinitely full of energy except when they aren't because the plot demands , heal easily again, except when the plot demands , and for their mission on Earth they've been given a huge, beautiful, expensive house in a privileged small town, where one of them teaches at a private Christian school and another one attends it.

There is zero effort made to render them as sympathetic characters, probably because that's not what they exist for. They're fantasy avatars, in a way. Bethany is not there to be empathized with, in the way you empathize with another person or a well-rounded character. She's there so that readers can live through her. Gabriel and Ivy have no real purpose in the story at all, except to act as authority figures sometimes, if the plot demands; or to be lax if that's what's required and to have some minor, rote parts in the 'climax'. And we'll talk about Xavier later. The pathetic nature of the angels' 'heavenly mission' "Molly lowered her voice.

I was starting to get a sense of the extent of damage done by the Agents of Darkness, and it wasn't looking good. For all the lip service paid to the trying times Venus Cove is suffering through and the horrible things which have happened there, very little that's horrible above and beyond the ordinary actually happens. And it sucks, yeah, and it's horrible and tragic, of course, but it's not something that requires an angelic intervention!

Multiple times, Adornetto mentions other regions of the world with greater troubles than Venus Cove, but she always brushes it off by saying that other angels are there - as if that meant it was okay for Bethany to be living the high life, slacking on her community service, and putting Xavier higher on her list of priorities than Heaven itself! The obsession with and then glorification of prom "'Are you for real? It's the whole shebang - limos, outfits, hot partners, dancing. It's our one night to act like princesses.

The mood of the girls at school was bordering on obsessive. Turning up alone would be tantamount to social suicide. At the back of the room, the band was tuning their instruments. Waiters bustled around us, carrying trays of nonalcoholic punch. I'm also willing to make allowances for the fact that Alexandra Adornetto is not American and therefore cannot be expected to have experienced an American prom.

However, I supremely doubt that anyone's been to a prom like this. If your evening did consist of live music, waiters, china table settings, limos, and the threat of social suicide if you arrived partnerless, please inform me. Until someone does, I'm going to stick to my guns. Neither have I know any dance to be so all-important that it was the focus of such intense obsession. Again, Adornetto imagines girls to be terribly shallow, which I as a girl find deeply insulting.

I've read just about enough of these types of things. Everyone thinks prom is the event of the year, not to be missed at all cost, where everything important happens, and that's just not true. Maybe someday I'll write a novel where the heroine goes to the dance not with her true love, but with a group of friends, and they rock out and have a great time anyway.

It doesn't take a significant other to make a dance enjoyable, after all. The soapboxing "We thought of technology as a sort of corrupting influence, promoting antisocial behavior and detracting from family values. Our home was a place where we spent time with one another, not whiling away time shopping on the Internet or watching mindless television programs. The idea of having invested all this money into my education only to have it end in unemployment doesn't thrill my parents.

That first quote alone makes me hate you, and also marks you as a hypocrite. I'm willing to bet you didn't type this pathetic excuse for a book on a typewriter, let alone handwriting it. No doubt you use e-mail. I'd be shocked if you never watched TV. And yet you still have this close-minded archaic offensive attitude towards something that yes, can be a great distraction, but more importantly can be one of the greatest tools at the modern person's disposal. Though if you have an aversion to the internet, that would explain why you didn't do any research.

As for the second one, well, I'm just going to leave that there. The sick, sick relationship between Bethany and Xavier "I had been quiet for so long, absorbed in my fantasy of being stranded on a secluded island somewhere in the Carribean or held captive on a pirate ship, waiting for Xavier to come and rescue me, that it seemed they had temporarily forgotten I was there. Molly was a realist and held the view that friendships had to take a backseat when relationships started - especially if the relationship was as intense as mine and Xavier's. He became fiercely protective whenever anybody he didn't approve of came within a two-foot radius of me.

I hope you realize you can't lecture me about safety ever again,' I said. It's all part of the game. You can play nurse afterward if you like. I guess I had too much faith in you. She acts like a two year-old. Her dependence on Xavier is so near-total that it is deeply disturbing - the above rescue fantasies and assignment-finishing are only the tip of the iceberg. And putting the relationship above friends? Letting Xavier chase off people "he didn't approve of"? Does that not sound a little bit like the symptoms of emotional abuse? Oh, it's not portrayed that way, but that's what it would look like to another character who was paying attention: Xavier controlling who Bethany gets to know, telling her to avoid some people without explanations, taking precedence over everyone else she knows.

His double standards are annoying, too - he's allowed to be protective of Bethany, but she has no say about anything that happens to him and isn't justified in being worried when he's actually injured. Also, he calls her 'babe'. I swear, if any man refers to me in that way he'll get a swift knee to the family jewels - it's unspeakably insulting. Oh, and there's the fact that apparently he 'let' her go to the prom with Jake. Like she didn't have the freedom to make that choice for herself. And then he has the gall to not let her explain the circumstances, treating her like she has nothing worthwhile to say to him even though she's the only one who knows what happened.

Bethany, of course, instead of getting angry at her asshat boyfriend, goes home and gets all mopy. This whole situation is just Three more quotes, just because: The dress was a flattering pale blue with a pleated front and a white Peter Pan collar. With it we were required to wear knee-high cotton socks, brown buckle-up shoes, and a navy blazer with the school crest emblazoned in gold on the breast pocket.

Ivy had bought me pale blue and white ribbons, which she now weaved deftly into my braids. If it happened, I believe the angel would lose his or her divinity. There could be no redemption after such a transgression. It'll blow your mind and then ruin your life. Just one more thing they're perfect at. I could never in good conscience recommend this book to anyone, but if you're looking for snark bait, this is a doozy.

Also, if you're an aspiring writer who wants to learn how not to do it, this could be useful. But ye gods, if you're genuinely searching for a good read, stay as far away as possible. View all 68 comments. Feb 22, Sana rated it did not like it Shelves: View all 41 comments. Apr 17, Wendy Darling rated it did not like it Shelves: Given some practice in character and plot development, experience with real relationships, and some life perspective, it's possible this year-old author might produce an interesting book at some point.

As it stands, however, it's unreasonable to expect the average teenager to tackle such weighty subjects as love and evil and faith and redemption with any convincing measure of depth or insight. View all 32 comments. Mar 30, Katya rated it did not like it Shelves: She was never sexually assaulted, but nevertheless experienced panic attacks, sickness, and got drunk every night in order to deal with it.

Afterwards, she went through a tough period. She and her fellow journalists who go to 'hot zones' like Haiti, Egypt, Syria and Lybia are under enormous pressure and are reluctant to report cases of sexual and physical abuse because of t Edit: She and her fellow journalists who go to 'hot zones' like Haiti, Egypt, Syria and Lybia are under enormous pressure and are reluctant to report cases of sexual and physical abuse because of the victim blaming society likes to dish out on them As in, "Why did they go there, if they are so hot? In her article, she talks about PTSD, how difficult it was, how she used violent sex to ease the worst of it, and how afterwards she got up, went to crisis zones to do her job, reporting cases of sexual abuse on a daily basis.

She's my new personal hero. I'm brining this up because, with women like this in the world, I think God's servants can do better than knit mittens and walk the neighbor's dog. In fact, there is just no excuse for the uselessness of the angels in this book. After all, ours is a society that encourages children to succeed from day one, probably because their parents need the valediction as soon as possible, so the media is all too happy to raise a hype over some young singer or writer.

It's also very likely that the hype is raised because of the person's age, not the quality of their art. You can say that teenagers lack certain experiences and interactions outside their own social strata, which no amount of emotional maturity can make up for. Knowing all this, I knew full well that I would have to take the outrage directed towards Alexandra Adornetto 's Halo with a grain of salt. After all, she wrote this when she was seventeen?

You can hardly expect Nobel prize worthy prose, can you? Surely, if I took things into consideration, that book wouldn't be so bad. Well, I read the book, and my brother read parts of it with me. We both reached a conclusion. The said conclusion is not fit to be heard in polite company. Because here's the thing, my poor readers - even when I disregard the fact that this book reeks of juvenile kiddiness, the story is boring.

In bold and italics, because I need to emphasize it this badly. I don't always read amazing books, and I confess, I have plenty of guilty pleasure reads - something I can turn to, like comfort food, only it's much more merciful on my waistline. I can forgive anything as long as the story keeps me entertained. Halo fails to do so, for several reasons. One, there is no story-worthy problem. If you read Les Edgerton 's Hooked, you know that this is the most essential thing in a story, the thing that drives it forward. Usually, it's something related the the character's growth Edgerton uses "Thelma and Louise" as an example and it's loosely connected to the surface problems.

Halo does no such thing - the book consists of Bethany and Xavier falling in love or talking about being in love and that's it. Some demons get involved halfway through, but they barely make a serious impact. In the end, our protagonist ends up just as she started off as. And the love story, let's talk about that for a moment.

I do realize that teenage girls or angels in this case tend to get a little obsessed with the idea I am one, after all , but aren't there usually reasons why you fall in love? For love to get mixed up in matters, you need to feel something more than a deep appreciation for your boyfriend's hair, am I not right? You need to have something in common - personal interests, or goals, or at the least a saint-like tolerance for the other's flaws. I'm not saying that you need to be completely compatible, hell no.

But it would have been interesting to see Bethany and Xavier actually work on falling in love, and fighting to keep what they have, as opposed to having problems solved for them and the ever-so-convenient 'love at first sight' bull. The second problem is that this book seems bent on breaking every single writing rule there is out there. We have infodumps in lieu of a back story, being told, not shown things, clothing and decor descriptions abound If it's not relevant to the plot, don't write it. It makes up for much smoother reading.

I think that Adornetto practically brought down the guillotine on this story by making her characters perfect. That's the word Bethany uses to describe herself and her siblings - perfect. I get it that they're angels, but we readers don't want perfect characters. A perfect character means an unrelatable character.

As readers, we like to see someone who makes the same mistakes as we do and gets out of the mess by being a better person. Bethany being perfect means that she will not change, nor will she see the need to adapt to Xavier. I really feel sorry for the guy, but more on that later The really ridiculous part is that Bethany is hardly perfect. She acts like she is, but I mean, really now! Can an obnoxious heroine still be likeable? Alona Dare from The Ghost and the Goth is a good example of how to write a character like that. The problem here is that Alona knows what she wants and goes for it, aware that there are consequences but willing to face them.

Bethany neither considers what she does beforehand, nor is she willing to face the music when the time comes. She is irresponsible and comes off as selfish and uncaring. How, then, are we supposed to like her? The thing about this book that gets the most bile and outrage, though, is that quote: Feminism is a huge word, one that encompasses a lot of different ideas and theories, and it would be irresponsible to just throw it around like that. The only context in which the statement would make sense is that all the girls in Bethany's school adhere to that feminist movement which says that in order to be feminist you have to give up on being feminine.

No, you know what, I changed my mind. That statement is stupid. In fact, it is downright offensive because: Interesting how Adornetto would have published this crap if it weren't for generations of feminists fighting for all this stuff she clearly takes for granted. In fact, it seems to me that the girls in Halo are more fans of that school of thought which defines female empowerment as treating men like objects without any substance or depth.

Not once did I ever hear her describe Xavier in terms that were not connected to his physical appearance, or his usefulness as a protector. I don't know who I should be more mad at - Bethany for being so dependent on a guy, or Xavier for letting her siblings talk him into taking her back. He doesn't trust her when she says Jake forced himself on her, but then she takes him back without so much as a nod in that direction? Am I the only person who sees this as a major problem in that relationship?

If he doesn't trust her, and doesn't let her speak in her defence, it shows clearly how dysfunctional their relationship is! And all it takes is an "I'm sorry, I love you" for her to take him back? You wanna know how a genuine conversation would have sounded like? You were an asshole, to put it nicely. I understand why you were angry. But now you've raised a lot of doubt. Is this how you fight?

Loud and scary and mean, with no respect? Relationships hit speed bumps. How do I know this won't happen again? Sometimes I say things I regret. It's a bad habit, and I'll try to work on it with you. I promise you that I will never argue with you in public again, and I won't storm off without letting you have your say. You deserve more than that.

I knew that he was sorry, that was obvious. Sorry, and apparently a little oblivious. Sorry wasn't the issue anymore. Capable of destroying your whole world. How am I supposed to live up to that? Will it always be like this when I screw up? Because I'm going to screw up too. That was from a Twilight fanfic. Finally, all I have to say is this - clearly the author of this book is going to grow and develop.

We can only hope that her writing will get better. However, that does not change the fact that this book had nothing to keep my attention, nor incite me to read the sequel. The heroine enranged me beyond words - we live in a society where sexism and violence against women are a daily occurrence - we don't need angels in Heaven supporting that!

Finally, it doesn't matter how young you are and how long the book you wrote is, if it's not good, don't publish it! View all 15 comments. May 03, Clair rated it did not like it Shelves: There was a time in my life when I was super impressed with authors like Christopher Paolini got published at a young age. Of course, I didn't know anything about his publishing connections, but reading Eragon for the first time when I was 13 made me wonder if I actually could start writing and also get a book out there.

I wrote all sorts of tawdry crap, and looking back on it now is absolutely painful. I only had a vague understanding of how to build worlds and create characters, I over-utilise There was a time in my life when I was super impressed with authors like Christopher Paolini got published at a young age. I only had a vague understanding of how to build worlds and create characters, I over-utilised my thesaurus and any attempts at emotive writing were really maudlin affairs that just seemed completely telegraphed with no sense of build-up.

I insisted I was a serious writer, though, and although I never plucked up the courage to submit my writing to a publisher, I did put writing on the back-burner for several years while I sorted out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I'm glad that I did. I would be seriously embarrassed, not as an author but as a human being, if I ever wrote and believed in the same crap espoused in Halo.

Halo does not give you a thrilling story with loveable characters and deep emotional connections. Halo is a depiction of romance written by an immature sixteen year old following a Twilight binge. It throbs with purple prose and is devoutly conservative and preachy. Girls who are in any way sexually active are demonised, love is presented as co-dependency and idolisation rather than a sweet, romantic relationship, there are plot holes that one could drive the Knight Bus through, as well as several elements of Twilight that the book apes almost wholesale.

The book sets us up with rather grand stakes, in that God has deemed this one little town in the US to be in need of the counsel of an archangel, a seraph and a regular angel named Bethany. There's demonic activity brewing in the area, and it's up to our angels to stop it! But, psh, who cares about that when there's a hot boy called Xavier for Bethany to swoon over and question her angelic status? Our angelic trio well, Gabriel and Bethany — Ivy the seraph is stuck at home decide to attend school to make people get back in touch with their spirituality.

Supposedly, the mere act of an angel being nice or organising a social awareness programme turns even the most ardent atheist into a 'good church-goer'. Rather than do the logical thing, which would be to throw themselves into investigating the demonic activity, or doing volunteering in the town, so they can see the trouble firsthand, they just shrug their shoulders and stay indoors watching movies to learn how to acclimatise to human life, and give humans the cold shoulder. While living in a huge Georgian-style mansion with a baby grand in the living room, mohair blankets and cashmere throws.

Ivy, despite outranking Gabriel several times over in angel lore, is reduced to playing second fiddle. It's always Gabriel who has the right solution to a problem, or who convinces people into making the right choice. Gabriel, the archangel who revealed the birth of Christ and watched Sodom and Gomorrah burn, now teaches music at school and surfs. I'm quite sure that's sacrilegious in Catholic doctrine, to anthropomorphise an angel like this, but who cares about that when Bethany can talk at length about his bronzed skin and perfectly sculpted body?

I don't quite know how a book this preachy was brought out by a major publisher, when it firmly belongs in some Christian publishing house's slush pile, and not marketed as the latest hot teen romance novel. As well as preachiness about religion, you'll be forced to swallow down preachiness about conservatism and the vegan lifestyle, as well as the behaviour and musings of an immature, pathetic main character who does everything but focus on the mission for over pages.

Once Xavier and Bethany become an item, the plot flails weakly for anything that could provide something of interest, before the demonic villain Jake Thorn finally comes into the picture. In the last pages or so. I was reading an e-book version with no page listings, but believe me, the middle of this book dragged out so much that when the villain finally showed up, I was cheering and whooping and hoping for him to actual kick the plot up its backside. In a rather ridiculous manner. I'm sorry, you're telling me that an angel who regularly attends church service, reads the Bible and prays daily wouldn't have the slightest suspicion when a guy with a snake tattoo, dark clothing and drops more than a few obvious hints about his otherworldliness?

Like his reluctance to attend church? Speaking of this, the book has several research fails -- for somebody who claims to be interested in theology, the author thinks that an angel would have no idea what alcohol is, and continue to sip at an alcoholic drink even though it's making her feel funny um, what about Eucharist? There's references to Lucifer and God's covenant of archangels, and also this implication that archangels are the most important in the hierarchy of angels, compared to a frigging seraph who has little to do except hand out fair trade leaflets and bake cookies for the church bake sale.

Xavier and Bethany's relationship isn't a cute little romance. Xavier treats Bethany as if she's made out of glass, pushes her into eating when she's not hungry as if he implicitly knows what's best for her, and I lost count of how many times Bethany states throughout the narrative that she needs Xavier and without him her world shatters. Or something to that effect. There's a way to do romance, and this is not it.

Bethany and Xavier don't have a magnetic attraction, we're TOLD over and over that they do, rather than shown the extent of their relationship. One or two shocking moments along the way pale in comparison to all the times we have to sit through every single cheesy moment where they talk about how they love cuddling and kissing along the jawline or dribbling over each other.

Theological scholars — isn't that idolatry?

Bethany's devoting herself to Xavier more than she is to God, right? Answers on a postcard, please. I fail to see what the problems are in Venus Cove that would require a visit from an archangel and a seraph. I mean, there have apparently been car crashes and mysterious epidemics, but Georgia is a state where a large portion of the population are Christian — Southern Baptists, to be precise. There's some overlap with Baptist and Catholic practices, so I guess I'll let the obvious Catholic overtones slide, but let's take a look at Venus Cove.

It's a town of 3, people on the Georgia coastline. Speaking of which, the exact location is not mentioned in my copy — I had to read Hades to find out if we were in the United States or just some beach town in Australia. There are beaches, a s-style pavilion and promenade, and nearly every character we meet lives in a large house and attends a respectable Christian private school. What on earth could be plaguing people who are so, so rich and privileged to be able to live in a picturesque coastal town and living in a gigantic house?

The book could have had this subplot about how wealth doesn't make you happy. How the people in Venus Cove have no sense of community, because all everybody does is try to out-compete one another, there are family feuds over inheritances, and there are people who have scaled the mountain of success and promptly discovered that that being on top of the world has not given them the happiness they thought it would. That would make for a premise that our angels could perhaps help with.

People have lost faith and need it to be restored. Shame that this version of Venus Cove was never written. One could cut out a few scenes of purple prose describing the furniture in rooms or how nice love feels or whatever, and actually draw blood from this boring plot-stone, but it never happens. Bethany outright states at one point that she is secretly glad that she wasn't dispatched to somewhere in the world that was seriously needy, because the mere news images of these events is enough to make her want to cry.

Aside from this disgusting attitude towards the seriously disadvantaged in the world hint: We're supposed to sympathise with her. Any time it is pointed out that Bethany is doing something wrong, she immediately shifts the blame elsewhere, whining about how she deserves happiness and everybody is ganging up on her, and it's not faaiiiir. The gender normativity in these books is stifling. I mean, of course, boys don't like make-up but they do like engines, and girls must only ever want to talk about make-up or emotions.

Girls are presented as irrational and men as rational. We're supposed to like Xavier for his 'black and white' view on the world, or the fact that he thinks Bethany is too weak to carry her own damn school books. Xavier's sister has an interesting personality, but she's instantly drowned out and seen as this overly-bitter and flighty little madam. A girl named Taylah cannot walk 'demurely' because she is promiscuous, and Bethany uses every opportunity to shame the girls around her for being interested in their appearance.

All the gender equality and feminist rhetoric that has been accomplished in the past century seems really distant from this book. You have an angel with supernatural powers as the main heroine, and you just make her into a weak little thing who can barely take two steps without needing to be supported by her man! I could go on. This book is one of the absolute worst I have ever read, and I was foolish enough to thrown myself down on this blade again.

One can only hope that the author has matured over the years and looks back on this book knowing there are major improvements she could have made if only she was emotionally mature enough to consider that internalised misogyny is not the way to make your female character look sympathetic, and nor is co-dependency a desirable romantic relationship.

Relevant Links Katya's excellent review. Adornetto's article on safeguarding one's virginity. This review is also available on Bibliodaze: View all 27 comments. My GOD, how could anyone possibly finish this piece of crap? Not even the funny kind of bad. It took a while for my brain cells to heal fully. I'll continue this book once giant unicorns poop out chocolate-flavored rainbows from the sky while wearing tutus and singing "Born This Way". View all 16 comments. Mar 21, Morgan F rated it did not like it Shelves: View all 44 comments. People willing to kill their brain cells.

Recommended to Varian Rose by: I got sucked in by the five star reviews. Please God, tell me your angels aren't like this! You know how a song plays through your head when you read a book, and the lyrics remind you of the story? What's inside is ugly. The message I got from this book was: You must suppress the interests God gave you for His own reasons, or you're going to Hell. I got this from the villain. The students that he befriended were Goths. Literally the only group of people in this book that dare to express themselves for who they are, and they get treated like they're sided with the devil.

If the characters weren't goths when he met them, he turned them into goths--all of them were highly creative students, artists, musicians, etc. Another message I got was you can only be a Christian if you fit our standards. These angels would hate me. On most days I wear black. Almost all the music I listen to is heavy metal. Acording to Halo I'm going to Hell. The "heroine" had not personality whatsoever.

She was supposed to be doing good, but instead she put the "cramp in her chest" about Xavier before everything else. Xavier was so perfect that he was sickening. I was tierd of hearing about his nutmeg hair and truquoise eyes Why were the angels even in this town? I think God's servants can do much more than teach hymns, knit sweaters, "bring people back to nature," and walk the neighbor's dog. Everyone was Christian, went to church every Sunday, and was super-polite. Xavier said that he didn't believe in God.

He said he believed in "a higher power, a spiritual energy. The climax was horrible. By the time these character even realize that there's a demon in town, they do nothing. They "wait for higher authority. Ward's Fallen Angel series into Halo so they could go kick demon butt. I had issues with the climax. Not the "power of love" thing, but that it was romantic love, not godly love, that defeated the demon. For being a book that promotes Christianity, the author never talked about the love of Christ.

Bethany, an angel , put a "cramp in my chest" before God. Once she "fell in love" with Xavier, she forgot about God. I would not give this book to a young teen. Messages like the ones in this book will make them A. Terrified of expressing themselves B. Think that it's okay for a guy to take over your every thought C.

Frightened of the physical side of a relationship. Did anyone else notice that Jake tied Emily to her bed so she couldn't escape the fire If you really want to know why this book made me so angry, please feel free to go through my status updates. I could go on, but I don't want to. I was deeply offended by the message I picked up, and will not be reading any more of this author. Yes, this book is clean sex before marriage is portrayed in a very negative light, an if-you-do-this-you'll-go-to-Hell sort of light and there's very little violence.

Check out Covet , which is the first in a series. The angels aren't characters in the love story, but they bring the couple together. Another good book that features angels is Angel Time. View all 19 comments. More of my reviews can be found at Flipping Through the Pages! A taxi I caught recently had the craziest driver I have ever met. The minute I got in the taxi, he asked me if I was interested in politics, I said yes, I've studied it and I still try to keep up with the latest He took that as an invitation to start preaching to me about the political party that he supports.

They also have the nerve to say More of my reviews can be found at Flipping Through the Pages! Everything this taxi driver said to me was solely his opinion and the opinion of the preachy, ridiculous newspaper which wasn't my belief. I felt the same sort of thing happened whilst reading Halo. As an athiest, I do not mind if somebody is religious or has different beliefs to me. However, the moment that somebody starts preaching their religion to me, I'm not interested. I just don't want to hear it. So, Halo follows three angels who have been sent to Earth to combat dark forces.

Excuse me, but what dark forces? The plot of this novel was non existent and consisted of info dumps about nothing and long, boring descriptions of everything. Every single character was flat and boring. Worse than Nora, Bella and Luce put together. She had the personality of a pole and the wits of a Barbie doll. She could not do anything by herself, she constantly clung to Xavier and thought about him when they were apart for 5 minutes.

She also couldn't bear to watch the news for fear of seeing something bad. I'm sorry, but this is not a healthy relationship. If my boyfriend wanted me to spend every waking moment together, and if we got to the point that we felt like we would rather die than be without eachother for an hour, then I think we'd have a problem. Wanting to do that and just wanting to touch, smell, hear, see, taste the other person constantly is not love. This is a major problem. Seems to me, the author was a teenager when she wrote this, who had been raised perfectly, has parents who are still together, went to a private school and was published at an extremely young age and therefore has very unrealistic ideas as to what is evil, what is good and about the world in general.

Not only are the primary characters flat and boring, the secondary characters are too. Bethany's friends are the worst. I'm not kidding when I say all they talk about is boys, makeup, shopping and prom. They have no substance whatsoever. Bethany's "siblings" are also flat and boring. For instance, Gabriel yes, that Gabriel just fucking cooks all the time and looks moody on occassion, and Ivy cooks, sews and cleans.

Everything in this novel is stereotypical and essentialist.. Also, she is extremely essentialist toward "goths", "'And what is the center of goth culture? Ivy looked at him, her eyes wide. So every single "goth" loves the concept of death and cemetarys do they?

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Not everything is black and white. Ally not only has a habit of preaching religion, but also her ideas. For example, Xavier would like to get into design which I hate, just because I want to throw a computer when using Photoshop but isn't going to because "[It] Isn't considered a serious career, is it? The idea of having invested all this money into my education only to have it end in unemployment doesn't thrill my parents". Seriously, if my parent's told me I couldn't do Journalism or Public Relations, I would tell them, "It's not freaking up to you, it's my life, I'm determined, I'm going to go far".

If you're determined enough, you can do it Oh, look. Also, Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet is mentioned throughout.