Book review: Good Angel

Good Angel (Good Angel #1), by A.M. Blaushild

Description: (from Goodreads)

Iofiel is an ideal candidate to become a guardian angel, and help steer humans away from sin: she’s helpful, cheery, and utterly loyal. And, as the ‘angel of beauty’, it’s not like she has anything better to do.

Heaven and Hell long ago ran out of space: there’s too many humans these days, so both have come to a shaky truce – one school sheltered in the forests of Canada, hidden from humanity, where their young can study.

All seems well for Iofiel’s first days at university – her Archangel roommate is a bit uptight, and dealing with demons feels weird– but when a picked on demon confesses he’s too nervous to pursue his true passion of soul stealing… Iofiel promises she’ll major in it with him!

So much for being a proper angel. Her helpful impulse has repercussions that shake the school, and may just change the world forever. Or just end it.

Because that’s a possibility too.

Expected publication: August 22nd 2017.
A review copy (eARC) of this book was provided by the author. Some things might change in the final copy.

I’m always looking for books set in university and when I saw on twitter that this one (described as “Fangirl meets Good Omens“!) was set on an university for demons and angels I was quick to jump on the chance to read and review it!

“Wait until you know what essays are.”
“I know what essays are, and I am afraid.”

At first I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story. I was a bit taken aback by the main character, an angel born only a few days ago but not entirely lacking any knowledge to function since angels have some sort of starter pack in their brain, which is helpful I guess.
The worldbuilding is not too complicated but well thought of, it seems the author tried to think of every way this could work and while I ended up being a bit unsure about some details, I quickly forgot about all this and had a very enjoyable time reading Good Angel.
Plus I loved how angels and demons had very unconventional appearences! They looked scary, inhumans and very weird at times and I found that very cool.

“Iofiel really needed to remind herself that, if she was going to go around being a nice person to jerks, she could at least pick demons who hadn’t personally victimized her friends. Or herself, actually. Ugh.”

Once I was a bit more into the action, into the day-to-day routine of the university and Iofiel’s life, a bit more used to her, it was a very entertaining novel. All in sweetness, and great side characters!
It took me a little while to warm up to Iofiel, she’s a bit of a naive too-good-for-her-own-good person, but I quickly went to the “Iofiel you pure baby!! ❤ ” stage. I ended up rooting for her, stressing with her because of the dilemmas she was put in front of, and really pleased with was she decided to do in the end. She’s not perfect, she’s impulsive, too nice and a bit reckless, but she also is aware of this and make efforts to be a good friend and a good angel.

A bit more info on the other characters:

Archie is an imp (not really a demon like his classmates) who wants to study in soul stealing. He is the first of his kind to go to university, unfortunately bullied left and right. (Art of this poor guy!)
Maalik is Iofiel’s roomate, an archangel with an anxiety disorder. He loves to cook and is struggling with his sexuality.
Santiago is a demon with a heart of gold, and her girlfriend Damien is passionate about poetry. (Art of these two cuties!) They were my favourite characters of the novel! ❤
Art of the cast!

I liked the discussions around gender and sexuality, especially since angels are supposed to be aro-ace and agender. While equating this to the fact that they are not people per se made me wince (since there ARE actual people who are aro-ace and agender) it still was discussed a bit so it’s okay. Still, a lot of angels actually weren’t and had a hard time figuring themselves out, which led to interesting conversations.

“Are you wondering what a triple A angel is?” They laughed slightly. “Asexual, aromantic, agender. That havenly ideal. Unfortunately, we do tend to be a little more than a collection of labels and a species name, don’t we?”

This is a story that can go from an adorable conversation, to a frightening revelation, some chilling bits and then college life. It felt like anything could happen any time and it added to the suspense and made me want to keep on reading to know what was going to happen.