Publication Date: 04th April 2023
Genre: Urban Fantasy (Romance)
2.7 Stars
One Liner: A commendable attempt
Azrael, aka The Death Agent, Grim Reaper, et al., has made a mistake. He was supposed to take Molly Molloy’s soul but ended up saving her from death due to chicken wings. Of course, the boss up there isn’t pleased and ordered him to set things right.
Molly may have had a hard life, but she isn’t going to let a bumbling Agent of Death take her life. Now that she can see and talk to him, she is determined to stay alive for as long as possible.
Interacting with Molly makes Azrael question a lot of assumptions… and he is falling in love with a human! But how will it end for them?
The story comes in the third person POV of the two main characters (with an occasional insight by another character).
What I Like:
The premise is intriguing, and so is the cover. In fact, I requested the book for the cover. So good!
Death, aka Azreal, is quite a delightful character. Not someone confident and rude but more like an enthusiastic young kid who needs constant supervision. This is rather fun to read, even if it gets exasperating in the second half.
Molly is a strong-willed character with a tragic past. She still retains her cheerfulness and loves bossing around Dee (Death). There are a few things I didn’t like about her, though these make her more ‘real’, I suppose.
The first 40% of the book is super cool. Yeah, the writing is a bit different (complex). Still, it has some laughs and weird stuff going on. Entertaining too.
The setting isn’t explained, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you go with the flow. Sometimes, it’s easier to not wait for explanations and let the story go where it wants to. Yet…
The book sure has some introspective points about life, choices, changes, etc. However… (more in the next section).
What Could Have Been Better for Me:
Though a majority of the story is set in NYC, the setting up there and the role of other people (so many have names, but only a couple of them are recurring characters) isn’t fully explored. As someone who likes world-building, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by the lack of details.
The last 30% of the book is boring. It takes the story forward at 8x speed to cover a huge timeline. However, I couldn’t stay invested in the plot and stop bothering. I just wanted the book to end.
The climax should have been powerful. It is set up to be. Though, for me, it ended up confusing. I read it twice to understand what happens. Somehow, the impact isn’t there.
In a way, the book should have been a novella. I didn’t like the preggs trope and the subsequent track. That’s where my interest started to dip. Since the concept isn’t explained much, this would have been more entertaining as a novella.
I like dark humor. I enjoy it in most books. Here too, I like it in some places. Yet, some of it (again in the second half) gets stressful. I sure don’t want to laugh when a woman literally has to run the household because her partner is not suited for pretty much anything. The said guy being ‘Dee’ doesn’t change things. Not really.
To summarize, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death has an entertaining first half and a heavier second half with some weird stuff and dark humor thrown in. It has a bit of steam.
Thank you, NetGalley and Wild and Ashe, LLC, for the eARC.
#NetGalley #MollyMolloyandtheAngelofDeath
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TW: A reference to child rape and death. It can be triggering even if the incident isn’t detailed at all.
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