Roses of the Angel, from Kalee Marshall

Hello, again! Today I’ll review a book that was kindly sent to me in exchange of an honest review: Roses of the Angel, from Kalee Marshall. Thank you so much, Kalee!

The Story

(Goodreads’ Blurb)

Eve Williams is ready to begin her senior year in high school with the help of her family, friends, and faith. As she heads to her first class, Eve is already wondering who will ask her to prom. But when football player and notorious bad boy Ryan Mitchell walks into the classroom, Eve thinks she has her answer. Soon he asks her on a date and Eve accepts, despite warnings from her friends and her own misgivings. Ryan is the mastermind behind the school’s bullying problem and her friends are his victims. To exacerbate the issue, he cheats on her and their relationship ends. Disheartened, Eve embraces her single life, earns a generous college scholarship, and works as a retail store manager. But on Halloween night, everything changes as a robbery unfolds at the store, leaving Eve unconscious and a secret admirer to reveal himself. Roses of the Angel is the tale of a teenager as she grapples with affairs of the heart and struggles to find her way in life.

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I had good hopes for this book and I’m not really disappointed, but I wasn’t really impressed either. Kalee Marshall talks about a really important subject on his book: how bullying can compromise a person’s life. I suffered a lot with bullying at school, as I was chubby and nerd-like and, to this day, I can’t walk near a medium to large group of teenagers without feeling like I’m going to throw up or have a diarrhea crisis. People, especially children and teenagers, don’t really know how much they can hurt others with their oh-so-healthy camaraderie and Marshall showed us just that. His writing still needs a little polishing and I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the over-religious tone of the book, but I enjoyed my reading time. Meaning? Three stars 🙂

The narrative was third person styled, which I liked, but it was too slow and there were some scenes that I really don’t see the point in existing. Marshall wants us to understand Evie’s environment and reality and describes everything in a manner that we feel as if we live her life or were one of her countless friends. This immersion is good, but can be tiring.

The plot was simple, revolving around the rose mystery, but didn’t really hold my attention. I think I wasn’t a 100% accurate audience for this book, as I got tired of everything too fast 😦

The characters are well described and real, but really shallow. Everything is “too perfect” on their interactions, things got too didactic. It may work on a younger audience, but it was one of the things that bothered me the most. When I saw how “bipolar” Evie sounded when she first spoke with Ryan, I knew it wouldn’t work well for me.

On my humble opinion, the strongest point in this book is the anti-bullying message: it has to go down to a healthy level as it is useless to say that it has to stop. It is okay to joke around. It is not okay to make the other person regret their birth. #justsaying