Ariel Rises only to Plummet High Hopes

In early January of 2016, a married couple, named AJ & CS Sparber, residing Hudson, Ohio, released part one of a sci-fi series Ariel Between Two Worlds. Through a mutual friend, they came into a contact with me and asked me to write a review of their book from the perspective of “a young individual who has a passion for reading a variety of genres.” Accepting the challenge, I was eager to start reading the book, titled Ariel Rising, and I had nothing short of high expectations.

Unfortunately, only fifteen pages in, I felt obligated to continue flipping pages rather than enjoying the YA “adventure”.

How could something meant to be a light read feel like a homework assignment, lurking around until I kept reading? Well, here’s why.

Imagine this: an almost 18 years old girl named Ari Washington running through the woods one sunny morning and conveniently, or inconveniently, runs straight into her abusive, stalker ex-boyfriend. (Mind you, she was running in a national park in her homestate of Virginia, and the chances of her running into him are basically slim to none, but that’s okay. Let’s keep going.) After he tries to rekindle their love by what feels like minor sexual assault, she punches him so hard that she knocks him out. Then, upon hitting him, she runs lightening speed for about 2 miles and suddenly stops, completely unaware of what she just did.

With no back story, no character introduction, and no possible reason as to why she is running like a bat out of hell, the book unfolds about a million and three questions that takes about 70% of the entire novel to explain.

All right, now back to the story: Not only does she realize something is wrong with her within the first chapter, but she meets a dashingly handsome young man who *also* can run as fast as her, and he saw the whole confrontation with the ex first hand. She almost immediately falls in love with him, despite the authors’ best attempt to make it seem like she isn’t all that interested. Classic.

While this may not seem like the worst possible read, after all, nothing is worse than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but believe me, it’s up there. From the sentence structure, awkward page layout and uncomfortable flirtatious conversations, it was all I could do to keep reading.

Now, I want to take a step back and acknowledge this: the premise of the book is actually extremely creative, and possibly movie worthy. Without giving away too much information, the whole storyline is derived from the idea that there are angels living amongst us, protecting us from fallen angels known as the Zon. Apparently, Ari is somehow an angel that has extraordinary powers unlike any of the other angels, yet she barely knows who she is anymore. When a prophecy is unveiled describing Ari almost perfectly, Ari must save the world by defeating the Zon.

Just not in this book.

While the relationship between Ari and her new friend Davin are perfect for a chick flick movie with all of their alone time and secret getaways, I found it to be over the top and mushy; furthermore, the exchanges between Ari and Davin not only made the characters in the book uncomfortable, but myself included.

Not only was I bored with the constant love scenes, I also found the book to be extremely informational. I get it, if I were to wake up one day, I would also have a million questions; however, I feel like there could have been a way to shorten all the responses and limit the curiousity. Readers want to know about the current crisis at hand, not the ones that happened thousands of years ago on repeat.

By the end of the novel, I felt like I could give a history lesson on the development of the Zon and all four types of angels, but sadly, all I wanted to read was about the upcoming war. Due to it’s inability to keep me engaged, I did not have the willpower to finish the book to its entirety.

To this day, I still do not regret that decision.

Overall, if you would like a quick, semi-shallow and unthought-provoking book with uncomfortable mushy dialogues between each character, then this book will be perfect you.