{"id":2527,"date":"2023-03-09T14:20:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T19:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=2527"},"modified":"2023-01-18T14:55:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T19:55:35","slug":"book-review-angel-falls-by-julia-rust-and-david-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=2527","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REVIEW: ANGEL FALLS BY JULIA RUST AND DAVID SURFACE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Angel<\/a><\/p>\n

Angel Falls by Julia Rust and David Surface<\/p>\n

YAP Books, 2022<\/p>\n

ISBN-13 \u200f : \u200e 978-1949140330<\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition. (\u00a0Bookshop.org |<\/a><\/strong>Amazon.com )<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1600s, a large group of women and children colonists of Beauport, Massachusetts disappeared, killed by the Indians they displaced. A year later, they started to return. Those who believed the returning family members were real were forced out of Beauport and formed a new settlement, Angel Falls, now abandoned.<\/p>\n

Jessie is visiting Beauport for the first time, with her father, who is sorting out her cousin Dorothy\u2019s estate. It\u2019s also likely a trial separation for her parents. There\u2019s not a lot to do, so despite warnings that a girl recently disappeared there, she decides to explore Angel Falls. There she meets Jared, who is dyslexic and in summer school for English, working at a crab shack, and caring for his depressed, suicidal artist father. They discover that together, while at Angel Falls, due to their ancestors\u2019 gifts, they are able to make their wishes happen, to \u201cfix\u201d the people they love, but always at a price.<\/p>\n

Jessie discovers letters from her grandfather to Jessie\u2019s cousin Dorothy, who also clearly had this ability, trying to force him to return to Angel Falls by making wishes. We only see one side of a correspondence between them but it is pretty obvious that Dorothy\u2019s actions are why Jessie\u2019s parents have never mentioned her before. Jared\u2019s English teacher is obsessed with Angel Falls and Jared\u2019s growing ability, but Jessie and Jared both have doubts about continuing to use it.<\/p>\n

The backstory has to be pieced together and so the background to the story was confusing, but the book is compelling, with some memorable moments, and was hard to put down once it really got started (it starts with days of rain trapping Jessie inside a cabin, not the best choice for getting the main characters going, but the authors get it jumpstarted). I especially liked the relationship Jared had with his dad and the way the authors showed that under the idyllic surface things were not quite right. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angel Falls by Julia Rust and David Surface YAP Books, 2022 ISBN-13 \u200f : \u200e 978-1949140330 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition. (\u00a0Bookshop.org |Amazon.com ) In the 1600s, a large group of women and children colonists of Beauport, Massachusetts disappeared, killed by the Indians they displaced. A year later, they started to return. Those who believed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,119,20],"tags":[421,420],"class_list":["post-2527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-horror","category-ya-books","tag-david-surface","tag-julia-rust"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-EL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2528,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527\/revisions\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}