In Mercy, we met the fallen angel of that name. At least, that’s what she calls herself for convenience, because she doesn’t remember what her actual name is. All she knows is that she was once big in heaven and somehow stuffed it up, hanging out with her beloved Luc (Lucifer?), who led the rebellion. For thousands of years she has been thrown into different human bodies and lives, leaving when the time was right – or necessary!
I saw the first book as Quantum Leap with angels, with Mercy as a sort of female Sam Beckett who didn’t have the benefit of the friendly hologram Al to help her work out what she was there to do.
Mercy was a mystery-adventure in which the heroine helped both Carmen, the young soprano whose body she was inhabiting and Ryan, a boy whose sister disappeared a couple of years ago, before “leaping” from Carmen’s body into another life.
Now Mercy is inhabiting Lela, a Melbourne waitress whose mother is dying of cancer. And Luc is back in Mercy’s dreams, urging her to return to Paradise, the town in which she met Ryan, and find him again. Only this way, he tells her, can she and Luc be re-united. Because Ryan had seen and cared for her even when she was in Carmen’s body, Mercy finds the idea rather appealing. After all, Lela will soon be alone and free to run off with Ryan, if she can find him. And there is this thing called the Internet, which can be used to find just about anyone.
Why, she thinks, shouldn’t she consider herself for once?
But things are not that simple in the human world or in angelic warfare. Is Luc quite as wonderful as he seems? Are the group of angels known as “The Eight” quite as dreadful as Luc would have her believe?
And who is going to die on the same day as Lela’s mother?
Despite her tendency, in this novel, to stuff up, Mercy still manages to help some of the characters whose lives cross Lela’s, including an ageing stripper escaping an abusive ex.
I like this series so far, for its difference from other novels of the genre. The fallen angel is female and it’s implied that she did something very stupid way back when, rather than evil. I’m sure we’ll eventually find out what. Meanwhile, the idea of having her occupy human bodies and lives makes it possible to keep the series going and perhaps try something different in each.
Will it work for teenage girls? Well, there are enough hot males in it to keep them interested and meanwhile, I have to take this book back to my school, because there’s a teenage girl who’s waiting for it.
Recommended for girls from about fifteen upwards.
Mercy by Rebecca Lim Publication date: 17 May, 2011 from Disney-Hyperion ISBN 10/13: 1423145178 / 9781423145172
Category: Young Adult Fantasy
Format: Hardcover
Keywords: Contemporary, fantasy, adventure, angels
How I found out about this book: I picked up the ARC from the publishers at ALA Midwinter 2011. My pal and YA fan
fishgirl182 agreed to do a guest post since I'm occupied with school and other things right now. Thanks!
Guest review:
This book had an interesting premise but, unfortunately it falls short of its potential. The first 50 pages or so of the book was slow and I was afraid I was never going to get into it. Luckily that wasn't the case and the book gained momentum.
Mercy, who we discover is a fallen angel, has been doomed to wander earth flitting in and out of different bodies for short periods of time. Like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap, Mercy has no say in when she comes into or leaves a body. The problem is that she has no real recollection of who she is or what she is meant, if anything, to accomplish while she is in these women's bodies.
She remembers bits of her previous hosts but her only real connection to her true self is Luc, who appears to her in her dreams. There is a mystery element to the book as Mercy and her new host Carmen end up in the home of a family whose young daughter, Lauren, was kidnapped two years earlier. Thanks to her unique gift of being able to probe people's minds with a touch, Mercy is able to see the visions that Ryan, Lauren's twin brother, has of Lauren and she believes him when he tells her that Lauren is still alive. I quite like the dynamic that Ryan and Mercy have: their dialogue is the sort of bantering antagonism that I so enjoy.
I think the main problem with the book is Mercy herself. She's just not very likeable. Without any context to her circumstance, the little we know about her comes from her own memories and feelings. Since she doesn't know much about her past, she and the reader have very little to go on. We do get the idea that she may not have been the nicest person in her real form and that she doesn't care what other people think about her (this latter repeated several times throughout the book). Though she seems callous at times, we can see that Mercy is trying to do good (i.e. helping Ryan, standing up for Carmen) but, even then, her motives are unclear.
Part of the problem may also be that, as this is the first book of a series, the author is holding back key pieces of information for the sequels. I think if she had just given us a little bit more it would have made this book much better. Perha
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Aw, man. I wanted to like this one, sorry you didn't. Thanks for the review!
I want to like it too--still will give it a try, probably. Thanks again, Thuy, for the review!
it wasn't bad. it just could have been better. that said, i am still intrigued enough to read the next one.