I didn't even mention that Xavier is supposed to be part angel... or something, it's not well explained. Patreon: / jamestullos Twitter: / fortullos Donate: paypal.me/Jame... goodreads: / james-tullos Subreddit: / jamestullos
@@revolutionstudios5052 Not necessarily, just instead of hating everyone else you just can't love anymore. Though if there was a word for it, I wouldn't know
You pointed out how this is "1st world problems" kinda book, and now I can't stop thinking about the same premise with someone who does need help, imagine an guardian angel falling for a boy in the midst of a war or for a boy that lives in a imporiverished slum... people fall in love in the worst of places all the time. And since the angels can't fully Interact with humans, imagine how torn the angel would be between saving someone who's doomed to die and fullfilling their single goal appointed by god.
Or go the other route and find out the things that are not well underneath the surface of this small town. I mean, even in a first world country people can be suffering. It could have been interesting to keep the story small-scale and relatable to first world audiences. And you could still have touched on difficult topics like child abuse or social isolation or hidden poverty.
@@johannageisel5390 Lets just go balls to the wall action. One of the high school groups are working for satan and the angels job is the stop Satan being summoned which would result in God needing to restart the earth.
considering the author was barely 18 when the first book was published, and she managed to write and publish a 500 page book that sold pretty decently I can't even be mad at it being so terribly written, like at least she got her bread ig
@@user-vs3gc4cn3t She made a whole series, this is just book one. It gets better in the last book, but the second is a plothole filled trainwreck that I still can't help but adore
That makes me proud of her, ngl. Book quality be damned, she did the work to get published. ...unless she got in with connections or whatever but still
The author probably picked it because it’s a Bible name, but even that doesn’t make sense. “Bethany” is just the name of a village in Judea. It’s like naming a character Albuquerque.
@@PhileasLiebmann True. But why sexy Colonel Sanders of all things? It just seems so random. When I think Lucifer, I imagine he looks more along the lines of how he did in the Lucifer TV series or another super handsome man, not KFC founder.
this book series makes me wonder about the background of the author. This comes off as an incredibly sheltered christian kid who doesn't really know about things like history or theology or basic human nature, trying to write a romance but they don't have the life experience to pull it off.
[literally gets seen descending to earth in a paranormal way] "Something startled him... Perhaps our skin, or maybe our limbs... Who knows? Could have been anything"
Angels are such an interesting concept left woefully unexplored. I liked the bit you read about them getting used to their bodies but I would expect more focus on how alien human life is to them, how strange human relationships are. And what if the angel fell in love with an ugly boy? They're so used to perfection that all his imperfections and faults are unique, fascinating and beautiful to them? I mean Heaven must get pretty boring. The author already confirms that the light on earth is muted and dim after being up there so long.
@@JamesTullos Here's something you could read if you _wanted_ to make one or more very long videos: This is the first chapter of the web-serial _Worm_ by Wildbow. It's about a teenage girl named Taylor Hebert who becomes a bug-controlling supervillain known as Skitter because she can't stand getting bullied in an inner-city school any more: parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/arc-1-gestation/1-01/
@@HopefulNihilist What Mozes Marcus said. Jesus was born in Nazareth, that's on the arabic peninsula. Both the Jews/Israelites and the early Christians have always lived somewhere around the eastern Mediterranean.
Through what means will you force The Master Cheif in those situations? As far as premise goes the only thing angels needed to 100% do is improve the town, everything else was free-form on their part. So why exactly a 2 meter tall man in power armor will go to high school? All in all I'm already intrigued.
@@birdbasket It’d be an interesting juxtaposition, since the Chief is often referred to as ‘Demon’ by the Covenant. He’d make a better servant of God than Bethany would though; he’s actually terrifying, the way angels should be. Also, you gotta include Cortana somewhere.
45:38 oh god that description of how Bethany's family made a positive influence on the town sounded straight out of Empress Theresa Also can I point out the cowardice of these kids who get married only so that they can have sex "the right way", cause a priest to be murdered, give a speech about lOvE and then don't have sex because they chickened out and want Heaven to go easy on them? At least in Fallen they show how far the couple would go to be together, Bethany and Xavier are selfish AND spineless.
I'm giving the smallest amount of credit to the main couple in Fallen-- at least THEY show how much the other cares more to them than either Heaven or Hell and willingly become humans just so they could be together.
As someone who has been a part of Roleplaying communities for a while, the overfocusing on small details and dialogue being interrupted constantly by the thoughts of the main character and the details of the environment sound really familiar to how roleplaying is done. Since in a roleplay the dialogue you're doing with important characters is between two people and shorter responses are looked down upon most people pad a dialogue response with the thoughts of the character and what's happening around them
I was thinking the exact same thing upon hearing that point. In my role playing community it's not seldom to see two characters having a dialogue through 300-word-texts but still managing to only say one line per message. I've got to say though, the pressure of always having to squeeze out a long detailed text just for the sake of it actually does tend to make the dialogues feel drained and stretched out... At least in my opinion.
@@OnkelFenrir yeah I generally do agree. When everything has to be stretched out you get bored way faster since you have to write paragraph after paragraph of barely nothing happening.
that’s what i was thinking!! years of being on “intermediate-advanced” roleplay forums that required 300+ word replies regardless of how dull the situation was led to so fucking many paragraphs of characters just having this inner monologue about everything they thought or observed. it honestly really destroyed my writing style for a while and, incredibly, this is actually the video that pointed out to me how annoying that all was to read!
Honestly, hearing the author was 16 made it all make sense. It sounds like a generic highschool AU fanfiction for a nonexistent fandom. Something like I would have written at the same age. Things happen because they happened in the original story, and the fandom's pre-established vision will add meaning. The setting's based on your own town because that's what you know, but with movie tropes for flavor because that's what the stories you've seen do. You saw some cool angel fanart that makes you want to add some angel AU, but it's also mostly for flavor. And there's no meaningful conflict because the real point is to watch your already-beloved characters just existing; fanfiction readers aren't necessarily expecting you to come up with a fleshed-out original plot.
You're making me genuinely question if this was originally fanfiction and she just edited all the names. She wouldn't be the only one *cough* Fifty Shades of Grey *cough*
to me that sounded like something a homeschooled person who never took part in ANY culture (movies,tv or music) and has only ever interacted with family and other cult-members thinks a "doobier" would say while "floating on da cloud"
Where im from greening out means getting straight up nauseous/sick from smoking so much. Like when I was younger people would make fun of someone for greening out.
@@michhudson6485 it opened a door to many story plots. It entered none of them, satisfied with only peeking from teeny crack and ignoring 99.999999999% of the potential
It would make sense if Bethany's mission was to befriend those kids who have no friends, to speak out against bullying or to find out which students were mistreated at home so that measures could be taken. You COULD have made a story out of that setting.
This actually reminds me a bit of the Valkyrie series by Kate O'Hearn. I only ever read the first one and it was super good and sad if I remember correctly. The first book is about Freya, a Valkyrie, running off to help a man's family after he begged her to and learning about bullying and putting everything into helping the kids at school since no one else will
Let's be real, the Bible pretends those people were sinners too. It's not as if the Old Testament definition of innocence was something modern people generally agree with
"If they get caught being intimate and people think they're siblings, that's gonna draw attention to them" babe, they're in Mississippi...siblings boning is just another Tuesday for them
Hm. Actually thinking about it, a concept like this could be interesting, but like... God has sent down an angel from heaven to help people. She's beautiful and absolutely perfect in every way. But that's the thing. Because she's perfect, she's also just the most boring person in existence. Sure, she's nice and helpful and all, but she has no hobbies, likes or dislikes, and no real sense of individuality. But as she spends time on Earth, that starts changing. She starts becoming more and more human, slowly becomming really quite attached to these flawed little beings. But God and the other angels see this kind of stuff as an act of rebellion, acting against God's will. But she doesn't stop. She keeps changing and becomes more and more 'fallen' until eventually she decides that she doesn't want to be an angel anymore. She wants to be human and so gives her wings up to live a too short, flawed, human life. Like... That's the kind of story that I would want to write and/or see in a thing like this. Shame that isn't what happened here at all...
Why does this idea remind me of how 'The Little Mermaid' originally went? But really, an outwardly beautiful, other-worldly heroine going to extreme lengths to be a part of the human world is an interesting (if a little unpleasant) concept. The Halo series *could* have nailed it, but didn't.
I make whole meals for these. For today's hour & a half long RU-vid video meal, a choice from one of the world's many sea ports where ingredients from everywhere are tossed in. Mushrooms, green onions, and sweet peppers boiled in a mix of beef broth, Jamaican lager, and vegetable oil till soft to the touch. Then topped with a fried egg and the whole thing placed in a sandwich. Personally, beef is the center piece for Krimson Rogue videos, vegetable center piece for James Tullos, and white meat/fish for Daniel Greene
why wasn't this story just an angel who has no idea how humans work being confused the entire time. like PE class? just sprints the whole time not realising stamina is a thing. loved humanity? doesn't know love means other things on a more personal level- and everyone gets the wrong idea. just, interesting concept, but.. not used
I know this may sound weird but the idea that the angel's last name is church is really funny. Also, I feel like if Bethany chose the name church would go well with the idea of a younger angel not knowing how earth names work.
Maybe Gabriel and Ivy (Ivy could be a nickname) had more human-y last names--this sounds like the perfect concept for a comedy series. Gabriel could use a super antiquated or formal name, and be a super lawful good straightman kind of teacher/authority. Ivy could be more of the older sister kind of angel, with a more modern name. Maybe Bethany (whose name IS Hebrew-derived, but slowly transitions from writing her name as Bethania, the greek way, to using a nickname) could be less annoying, too.
Right after you said "I need an adult" an ad came on about weight lifting and there was a bunch of adult men working out. I don't know why that was funny to me but it was
I zoned out for like ten seconds because nothing was happening in the summary and then suddenly someone's dead and kidnapped and being dragged down to hell? hol up
Yeah, this book feels like something someone at 16 writes, and i know that because i see myself like this writing stuff when i was at that age. But gotta say, videos like these really help to learn how to write my stuff properly and i hope i improved past my young writing mistakes, lol. Going to continue watching now and feel my heart die slowly over this book. Edit: now i want to write a story where heaven is a nightclub, stories really should turn things around for once
Buchenwald might not have had gas chambers, but it still had at least one dedicated execution chamber where people were hung and shot, right next to the crematorium. I went there on a school trip a few years ago, and we had the opportunity to actually walk through those rooms (which I couldn't bring myself to do, because it was too depressing).
I second that! And the whole series, I've heard there are some... Twists in later books that I certainly wouldn't expect from this kind of book. Actually, James should read more of these porny romance books, I read them sometimes and... It's kind of incredible how much stupidity you can find in some of them.
@@tereziamarkova2822 I mean: what could go wrong 365 days, a copy of 50 Shades Of Grey, where there is an abusive relationship, wich is a copy of Twilight, where there is an abusive relationship?
@@fernandosantana7800 In case you're wondering, in the sequels (at least according to other people who read them), the heroine is kidnapped by a rival gangster named Nacho (yes, really) and falls in love with him as well. This leads to a Stockholm Syndrome love triangle when she can't pick between these two. There are also drugs, alcoholism, mafia wars, death of a child, a lot of smaller, but still horribly abusive actions from the "love interests", and much more buckwild shit. I need James to read it and comment on it all ASAP.
@@tereziamarkova2822 And of course there is a "love triangle", made by a twice Stockholm Syndrome: Jesus Christ, it's even worse than I tought. James Tullos, it is your loyal duty to read these books and rant about it.
@@fernandosantana7800 You want to know the best part? Spoiler: she ends up with Nacho. Yes, the couple from the first book isn't even endgame. That was the most surprising part; usually in erotic "romance", even if there is a love triangle, you know from the first page which guy the heroine ends up with, but there was a legitimate plot twist with this one.
@@heroofthewinds7765 of course. But he says the teacher doesn’t reciprocate, right? It’s normal to be attracted to adults as a kid. It’s up to the adult not to reciprocate and distance themself.
This is such a good point, thank you! I remember being in elementary school and really adoring my German teacher. I think teacher crushes are mostly innocent idolization of adults who first show respect and interest to children. I'm now a school librarian and had two proposals already, haha.
Wait... that Hanna-character wasn't in hell because she worked in Buchenwald, but because she tried to save someone who was imprisoned in Buchenwald??? I mean, yes, she sold her soul, but she did it to save the girl, so that feels just wrong on so many levels. And if she wasn't saved (by god or something) because she did take the job at the concentration camp in the first place and did who knows what there, then being a demon servant is way too small of a punishment. At fantasy authors: stay away from the holocaust. The only one I can think of who got it right was the one who wrote the backstory of Magneto from X-Men.
When you mentioned the river that enables Bethany to see her friends, I immediately thought of the River Lethe from Greek mythology (since, ya' know, Hades is also from Greek mythology) and was like, oh cool is it going to be the case that the more she drinks from the river to see her friends the more she forgets them? Like there might be actual consequences? But nope turns out it's just Hades' version of the mirror from Beauty and the Beast. Heaven forbid any conflict actually happens(!)
Just fyi- the UK is catching on to the prom thing. My cousin went to prom and she lives in England. However, they have their own traditions. Where she lives, people try to come in the most unique vehicles they can find.
Old Testament killed plenty of innocents - everyone in the flood (including kids), the firstborns of Egypt (again, kids), those kids who called the prophet Elisha a baldy (40 kids mauled to death by bears), allowing Satan to kill Job's entire family and household. God's choices to kill people were often entirely arbitrary so an angel killing some random priest just to send him to heaven isn't off brand.
Not to mention every time that God sold the Israelites into slavery to whichever group and after an unspecified amount of time sent some guy to slaughter all the people who held the Israelites in slavery, only to do the exact same thing over and over again. You'd think that people would wise up to God's tricks and stop buying the Israelites from him after enough genocides, but oh well.
I'd argue with the arbitrary point. It seems arbitrary to us, but an omniscient being who can see the entire picture - the hearts and minds of every being who ever lived plus all the the evils they have and will commit, not to mention the evils they are capable of - would of course seem random. Also, all of the examples you mentioned are from the old testament. From a theological standpoint, all the people who died would have gone to a holding place called Sheol, where they would await the coming of the Messiah. According to the Bible, when Jesus died and stayed that way for three days, it's heavily implied that he preaches to the dead people too, meaning they would get the same mercy and forgiveness shown to the living. So was killing all those people a bad thing? We really can't say. He is the inventor of the concepts of bad and good, so it makes sense that he would be able to judge accordingly. Of course, if you don't believe in God at all, then what I've said doesn't matter to you. And that's fine. I'm just a person on the internet. I don't exactly know the rules for angels, but if the angel killed a man without God telling him to, then that would mean the angel left God. Which would make him a fallen angel (or demon). Which might be a theological impossibility, since we've only been shown one time in the Bible where an angel exercised their free will and we're not sure if they get more than one chance to become a demon.
Yo I wanna create a romance novel where the lead is in love with a spirit of pollution. I'm gonna call it TOXIC LOVE. Surprisingly, it will be very very wholesome.
Fun Fact: I had a teacher friend who said on average there’s at least one student-teacher relationship a year at your average high school. It’s more common than anyone wants to think :/ (maybe it’s not a fun fact, but an unsettling one that does show that bad book plots aren’t far off from bad life plots)
Yeah I believe it. Back when I was in highschool, in ninth grade three teachers alone where arrested for having inappropriate relations with children (outside of the school though).
He likes to put random German phrases in his thumbnails. I think James once mentioned that he was learning German, but don't quote me on that. But whatever the reason may be, I appreciate them.
@@ipassedtheturingtest1396 He said in a previous video that he does it because he thinks German sounds mean and aggressive, aka appropriate for reviewing a bad book. It's actually very insulting...
I'm caucasian and it seriously creeped me out. It felt a lot like the author was kind of being like "white and therefore pure". The fact that there are literally no POC in the first book does not help that feeling.
I scrolled through the comments right after I heard that to see if someone had already brought it up. My god was that weird and creepy, and I'm whiter than Casper.
The relationship isn't toxic, and some of the ideas don't sound too bad. Honestly with a bit of polish and fluff cut, I could see this being a decent series...at least the first two books.
If they'd just put in SOME reason to drive the plot forward. Why not have Bethany sent to Earth specifically to help Xavier? Maybe he's destined for something, and Jake is here to prevent it? Maybe give Gabriel a better role in the story and Ivy a reason to exist?
I was actually interested in these books as I was a Greek mythology nerd and the title Hades caught my eye. Then I realised it was Christianity instead and was super disappointed. Glad to hear I didn't miss out on anything
Wowowow using the Holocaust and its victims out of nowhere - and with a ton of incorrect aspects to boot - to provide a one-off backstory in a fluffy YA story is just insane. Also, Mississippi being invisible to Angels... oddly enough, that makes much sense. The sheer quantity of butter consumed must be so sinful that it blinds all who would look down upon it.
@@ofthewilderwoods I don't know what 'literally' could mean in this case. Sure, the writers of the New Testament did not sit side by side with Homer and Hesiod and discuss how to harmonise the details, but Christianity was born in the Hellenistic culture and as a part of it. The writers of the New Testament were as much Greek as they were Jew. Lines between cultures, religions, languages, and philosophies are not clear and distinct.
This book. Dear lord this book. I read it in eighth grade on recommendation from another girl and I remember so little of it. I mean, the most specific thing I remember was how confused I was by the whole bit with Bethany suddenly having a belly button at the end of the series. Like. She was never born? No umbilical cord?? Just because she was suddenly human doesn't mean she should suddenly have a belly button. The girl who recommended it wouldn't listen to any of my complaints or confusions, so I was left to stew in confusion. It's been 5 years. Thank goodness someone else found these books so dreadfully dull.
I hate how many non human species in stories are almost always anti-emotion. Not that they experience and show their emotion in a completely alien way, which would be interesting. Instead, they always think emotions are stupid and that they are superior to humans for not having them. Like humans are the only ones in the universe to experience emotion. The plot is them always that the non-human species learn that emotions are good. It is sooooo overused and I'm sick of it. And I really hate the idea that only humans can have emotions. Even though any sort of society that is successful would be very social, thusly needing emotion to connect with others, these non-human society are way better than ours because facts don't care about your feelings, and that only logic is important. It really frustrates me
Same! Nice to see someone else pointing this out. Lack of emotion actually isn't healthy. I'm writing a fantasy book where stars can come down in human form like angels, and I had fun with them. They can feel emotion quite acutely, but they struggle with human culture. Stars can't lie and they have difficulty understanding speech and speaking. They are used to communicating through wordless song, which expresses their point perfectly, but with speech, they can't always say exactly what they mean. They also don't understand humor. They laugh whenever they are happy (which is quite often) but if someone tells a joke they just nod and say "this is true". It's possible to make an inhuman society without it being emotionless. It would be interesting to see the opposite, actually: a society where grown men weeping unabashedly is a sign of strength and stoicism is frowned upon as cowardice. It would actually be a good foil for modern society, which is highly cynical.
How do you keep finding these novels I read as a teenager, completely forgot about, and then vaguely remember as you describe them? It's like you're plucking them from my subconscious.
I read this book in middle school and the only thing I can remember was the time the author felt the need to describe that Bethany's skin was super beautiful because she had no pores. Now I can only picture the uncanny valley.
1:14:17 I assume the "pretending to be siblings" thing is meant to be a reference to the time in the Book of Genesis where Abraham pretends his wife is his sister while the two travel to Egypt, supposedly because the Egyptian men would try to murder him if they found out she was his wife (because of how hot she was)
The mention of the goth posse at 19:30 made me imagine a story where a teenage angel falls in love with a goth and learns to be goth as well, and among other things exploring wether that makes them fallen, and the intersection of goth and catholic aesthetics. From what I've heard so far I doubt the author could make such a story justice... let alone even think of it. But it's nice to imagine
The funniest thing to me about Angel YA is that biblically accurate angels look like Lovecraftian abominations. Writers could make awesome and complex cosmic horror plots with them, but they use them as cheesy love devices instead... Bruh.
The way you focused on falling for your teacher reminded me of Emmanuel Macron's love story with his wife. He's president of France and she used to be his teacher
You should do more videos on good YA novels. You're always making titles about how you're incapable of emoting because of a YA novel being so bad, you deserve happiness.
James: "Can we please stop having inappropriate student-teacher romances! They're creepy!" YA Romance Authors: "Creepy inappropriate student-teacher romances aren't a bug! They're a feature! ...Wait. Why are you calling the police on us? We're just promoting ephebophillia and potential statutory rape!"
Hell as taken from hel, a neutral not evil protective underworld godess i bad enough. But hades,everyone knos hades is a greek god, not a place, and why?!
@@marocat4749 Hades was sometimes used as a generic name for the Greek Underworlds in later times. In poetry for example. Still nothing to do with Hell though. The goddess Hel isn't that neutral since she takes part in the Ragnarok alongside Fenrir and company.
Just to clarify on the Diego thing: Diego is not only a hispanic name, it is latin (as in, it is common in Brazil for example, where we speak portuguese) and a big part of the population in latin america is in fact white, especially in the southern half of South America. So no, not necessarily the other guy was doing "black"face, unless it was specifically stated that Diego has darker/brown/black skin.
And even then it's really only blackface if done with makeup and if he was doing it in an attempt to belittle that race. Jake's just taking the form of a classmate to trick the heroes, villains do it all the time.
@@nyxofnight4344 Very good point about the make-up part. I am not sure, but from the people I have talked to, they do consider any non-black person pretending to be black (with make up) as blackface, even if it is not specifically to belittle and mock.
@@luizafett6642 That's fair, the couple of people I've talked about it with didn't really mind too much as long as it was not done mockingly, but I can respect that others would feel uncomfortable regardless of the circumstances behind the subject. It's a tricky subject for some.
While I agree in a general sense, these books take place in the US, so most of the Latino population there would be from Mexico and the Caribbean, who are usually mestizo or black. Anglo-white people in the US usually automatically think that anyone from Central or South America is mestizo. (Which is pure bullshit, because of what you said, but it is what it is.) Considering the author is an white Australian-American woman, I think she probably imagined him as mestizo. If that's the case, then...yikes. But like you said, it's not brown or black face unless the author said so.
Nice video. Quick notice: I'm from London, and we have proms over here. They're mostly for final year students(year 13), and there are a few other specific details based on how our class years are split.
These angel books feel so weird, like fanfiction written by people who haven’t read the source material. If you’re gonna write fanfiction with the archangel Gabriel in it, at least have him slaying demons! In fact, just... ditch the romance and write about Gabriel killing demons, that’d be way more interesting to read. Gabriel’s a cool character. (He didn’t destroy Sodom and Gomorrah btw, it’s never stated how exactly the cities were destroyed. All it says is that Abraham sees a TON of smoke coming from that direction.)
One of these days I'll write my romanceless novel about volcanoes in the C14th little ice age forcing the angels from heaven and show them all how its done. Or I'll spend all my time watching RU-vid and never writing.
I am embarrassed to admit it took me a few beats to get why the "tattooed guys who read are attractive" comment was funny. Thanks for another video James! Hope you're doing well. :)
I remember checking this out from the library in the morning before class and returning it by the end of the day after reading a little. Having a divine being go to a small town to essentially live a normal life is so absurdly boring and a waste of time. Also having a Romeo and Juliet quote alongside a Beyoncé lyric is just so emblematic of how dumb this book is.
