Review: The Guardians by Krista Ashe

The Guardians

By Krista Ashe

Published: September 5, 2012

Kindle Edition, 321 pages

Got Wings?

Elijah and Cassie aren’t your old-school angels chilling in the heavens and strumming harps. They’re members of the Guardians, an elite force of angels. Their newest mission is no walk in the clouds. In an effort to seek out troubled teens, they, along with fellow angels, Rafe, Sophie and Gabriel, will pose as a family of adopted brothers and sisters and enroll in high school. Along with their gift of “emotional divination”, which is to take on the pain of those who are suffering, they experience their own roller coaster rides of teenage emotions.

Accustomed to working with children, shy Elijah is overwhelmed when he is assigned to Abby, an honor roll cheerleader. When she discovers she is pregnant and her boyfriend abandons her, Abby turns to Elijah for support. As his feelings for Abby intensify, Elijah also struggles with the desire to be a guardian to Abby’s unborn baby. However, as Elijah is trying to do good, a dark force hovers over him in the form of Lucius—one of Satan’s demons. Things escalate when Elijah threatens Lucius. It will come to a fight to the finish with Elijah either being defeated or damning Lucius back to Hell. --Barnes&Noble

3.5 Stars

Review

With plenty of emotions and angst, The Guardians sets itself apart as a paranormal angel book without the whole excessive "pure" mojo becoming burdensome and tons of human like emotions for our "angelic" characters.

After witnessing the murder of a pivotal mother, Victoria, among several families, several angels, including Elijah and Cassie, are sent on a mission to prevent several of the mother's family members from going off the bridge to the bad stuff. The job's tough, but someone has to prevent these multiple children from being manipulated by Lucius, the malevolent presence responsible for Victoria's death who is out for more blood. 

The guardian angels are sent down to earth in human bodies to make themselves behave like real humans for the sake of fitting in, so the angels are not immune to the effects of human emotions. These emotions make the angels relatable protagonists, despite their job title as "angel." This feels somewhat out of place with all of the jealousy, pride, and anger that comes along with the title of being a "guardian angel." In some ways, this is more like a book about two people developing feelings for people who lack the necessary ability to go far in life without some support. Unfortunately, they fall in love with these hopeless people, and then the soap operas come in. *dun, dun, dun* (No, actually it's a good thing)

There are few angel books that take risks like The Guardians does. Instead of focusing on "cleansing" the souls of these poor humans, the angels serve as guards for the kids recovering from the empty spot Victoria left in their lives. However, many elements of the plot and aspects of the world are left unexplained that leaves the reader confused at times, and wondering why all of this couldn't be solved as easily as it is at the end. Every scene seems to be a climatic moment, even if it is not the vital to the story line. Whether or not that is a bad thing, I still have yet to decide, but overall, it feels as if there's no true plot line. Instead, it feels more like a group of TV episode summaries bunched together, with a new situation and climatic moment every few chapters.

Many of the characters of The Guardians vacillate from brimming with emotion to drowning to one-sided characters with no personality. For example, Elijah and Cassie are hormone-crazy angels in teenager bodies. It's endearing in that they have to experience what every human's forced to face, but a little odd to see these angelic creatures easily adjusted to the sinful nature that humans have. It seems questionable that the main angel characters are the ones with all of the problems, while the other three; Rafe, Sophie, and Gabriel, aren't really developed as characters and act like the angelic creatures they are. Nothing is wrong with this, in fact, it makes The Guardians stand out as a book. Meanwhile, the assignments; Abby and Zach, are somewhat undervalued. Rather than being seen as teenagers who suffer as all teenagers do, they are portrayed as nearly perfect humans with terrible circumstances awaiting them. Abby is Miss. Goody-Two Shoes, even when she finds out that she and baby can't be together. Zach is like the Hulk, a sweet guy with an untested rage just dying to be unleashed. Overall, the characters weren't exactly the best selection to be found, but they were enjoyable to read about.

The Guardians is a sweet, enjoyable read due to its easy nature and real-life problems among teenagers. Despite all of the angel talk, there is no other book that has many of the soap opera problems that teenagers must face in a realistic manner, way more realistically than dramas. At first, I was thinking this book would be like Halo by Alexandra Adornetto, which was one of the stupidest books ever written in the history of YA kind, but actually, this book succeeds in everything Halo couldn't possible imagine. The ending was a little rushed in my opinion, and needed work because of its approach, which could've been achieved earlier in the book to save many characters much grief. Regardless, with a plot accented with twists and a group of multi-faceted characters, The Guardians shows itself as a great start for what I hope to be a wonderful new paranormal angel series.

Purchase The Guardians: Amazon (Kindle)/ B&N (Nook)