Review: World After by Susan Ee

World After (Penryn & the End of Days #2) by Susan Ee
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Released: November 21st 2013
My Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Find it on Goodreads

In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose? (from Goodreads)

I am completely in love with this series, but reading each book is torturous, because now all I can think about is the dreaded wait until the next one...

Word After was a great follow up to Angelfall. While not quite as good as book one, I still really enjoyed it, and I just adored the characters so much. PENRYN. That girl was brilliant. Her feelings towards Paige were so great to read about - I mean, she loved her sister, and deep down she knew that what Paige did wasn't really her fault, but at the same time she couldn't help but be a little afraid, and see the girl before her as more of a monster than her sister. I thought maybe World After would  be a little boring, because a lot of the book was spent looking for Paige, much like in book one. But it was actually really different, and it was more Penryn's journey of trying to understand her sister and this new situation they were in - by the end of the book, I think perhaps they became even closer than they were before. And of course, Penryn was her usual awesome self. Narrowly escaping death a ton of times, finding herself in the most unusual of situations - and let's not forget her fab sense of humour, which had me smiling despite the less than happy circumstances. And oh my God, the interactions with Raffe's sword. That just cracked me up. The sword was sort of sentient, so Penryn found herself talking to it (her?) quite a bit, and there was this one scene where she was trying to get the sword to show her something, and I almost died. I will never again see the words "dusky pink" without laughing.

Raffe was just not in this book enough for me. It took over 300 pages for he and Penryn to reunite, and while I did really enjoy seeing the flashbacks of him, and I got why he wasn't around at the start, I really did miss him! However, when we finally did get to see him again, it was all good. I was really worried that the relationship between he and Penryn would become all mushy and cheesy, but it wasn't like that all! There was still the same hilarious banter from book one and it was just so funny and cute and made me realise just how much I had missed them travelling together. I mean, I did enjoy Penyrn on her own, and the flashbacks were great because we got to see Penyrn from Raffe's point of view, which was very interesting. But nothing could beat the two together, and I am so looking forward to their relationship developing even further.

Penyrn's mother had a slightly larger role in this book, and I have to say, I was intrigued by her. It was hard to tell when she was talking nonsense and when she was actually talking about something really serious. She acted very strangely sometimes, but often acted with a lot of insight as well and I am very curious to see what will happen with her character. She was also really overprotective of Paige - and I have to say, Paige really creeped me out. I was feeling the same as Penryn really - I felt so terribly sorry for her and I knew she wasn't a bad person - but at the same time...o_O.

Plot-wise, I had no idea where it was going and the revelations we got in this book about the angels, and why they were doing what they were doing, were surprising, but made a lot of sense, so I am really excited to find out what happens next. There weren't any huge twists or shocks, per se, but it wasn't predictable either. I was still confused about a few things by the end, but I'm hoping they'll be cleared up in the future. And I must say, the locusts were so incredibly creepy and scary and I did not like them at all. There were a few gruesome scenes involving them, so if you are really, really averse to that kind of thing, beware (though to be honest I am the most squeamish person ever and had no problems with Angelfall or World After).

Overall, World After was a great addition to the series, and seriously, could I want the next book more? I need it now. Highly recommended to everyone. Start this series. Don't be put off by the angels (read my review of Angelfall for more on that).