Let the Sky Fall is another debut YA series coming atcha! Although it had it’s ups and downs (<-- air elemental joke), I thought it was a good read overall.
Book Review: Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger
Goodreads | Amazon
Title & Author: Let the Sky Fall
Genre: YA – Fantasy, Romance
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Series:
Publisher: SimonPulse
How I Got the Book: Bought
Description:
Seventeen-year-old Audra is a sylph, an air elemental. She walks on the wind, can translate its alluring songs, and can even coax it into a weapon with a simple string of commands. She’s also a guardian—Vane’s guardian—and has sworn an oath to protect Vane at all costs. Even if it means sacrificing her own life.
When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their families, Audra’s forced to help Vane remember who he is. He has a power to claim—the secret language of the West Wind, which only he can understand. But unlocking his heritage will also unlock the memory Audra needs him to forget. And their greatest danger is not the warriors coming to destroy them—but the forbidden romance that’s grown between them.”
Sylphs and Secret
Vane and Audra could not be opposite of each other. Vane’s lived a sheltered life on Earth, occasionally facing odd occurrences when he’s on dates. Audra is an air elemental, or sylph, who’s been sworn to protect him. Vane doesn’t know he’s being protected or that there are things about him he doesn’t even understand yet.
When Audra is forced to reveal herself to Vane, she struggles to not slap him every hour, and he in turn wrestles with his new reality where he’s not human and the fate of his kind rests on his shoulders. NBD, right?
What I really enjoyed about Let the Sky Fall was the love/hate relationship between Audra and Vane. I think a lot of really great romances (book ones, at least) start out with this push and pull dynamic. Vane and Audra need each other, yet would rather do without. Although, Vane is very, very attracted to Audra, so you always get a sense that he could get over his annoyances with her a bit easier than she could with him.
Also, sylphs are new to me in YA fiction. Sylphs are creatures born of air, and can communicate with the wind. There are Northerly, Easterly, Southerly and Westerly winds, and each sylph, depending on their origin, has a special affinity with one type of wind.
The mythology and story of the sylphs was really interesting, and I’m excited to see how that evolves more in future books.
The only thing that kept me from really loving this book was the cheesy dialogue. It wasn’t always cheesy, but Let the Sky Fall definitely had it’s moments. It mainly originated from Vane, so maybe it was a teenage boy thing?
He just seemed to speak fluently in cliches and always seemed to be thinking about girls and…yeah, I was right. It’s because he’s a teenage boy. I think authors can definitely avoid becoming too obvious with this, but I can understand the “realism” created here.
OVERALL:
If you like cool fantasy creatures, love/hate relationships and your average beat-the-bad-guy storyline, then this is your kind of book. Let the Sky Fall was a good YA read overall, but I wasn’t in love with everything in the novel, including some cliched writing.
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If you’re looking for a book that make sweet love to your mind, then Under the Never Sky was written exactly for you.
