Die Prophezeiung der Seraphim is a novel by Mascha Vassena.
Finished on: 27.10.2015

Plot:
Julie is the daughter of a clockmaker at the end of the 18th century in Paris. If it wasn’t for the fact that she speaks with her cat Songe – and Songe talks back to her – the biggest mystery in her life is deciding whether Fédéric might be more than just her best friend. But all that changes when Julie finds out that her parents aren’t actually her parents. Instead her parents are angels. And Julie has a twin brother, Ruben. And Julie’s angelic father Cal uses his position as trusted advisor of the king for his own nefarious ends. With her entire life and everything she ever believed in in complete disarray, Julie decides to fight back. Together with Fédéric and angel Nicolas she takes up the mantle against Cal.

Die Prophezeihung der Seraphim was rather sweet. Not great, but not bad at all. I think that actual young adults will enjoy it a little more than I did, but despite a few weaknesses, I liked reading it, too.

I liked the idea of setting a fantasy novel during the French revolution, but in the end I thought that Vassena could have done more with the premise. The fun about choosing historical settings is to play around with them, and I thought that there is very little of that, apart from the general parallel that is the fight of humanity vs angels who want to rule them and peasants vs nobles who want to rule them.

The characters were all a little one-note, too and could have done with a little more complexity. That being said, that one note was very well executed. Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of female characters and the few that were there appeared even flatter than the male characters. At least Julie had Songe, so there was a little more interaction and even friendship between two female characters. Even if one of them is a cat.

To my annoyance there was yet another love triangle. Or, since the guys didn’t care for each other, a love V. I am very tired of love Vs and it seemed to me that even Vassena was annoyed by it since that angle is conveniently dropped as soon as possible, finding almost as abrupt an ending as the book itself. I was wondering whether Vassena had just run out of steam or whether she was counting on sequels to the novel, but it just all went a little fast for me at the end.

This may sound like I hated the book. I didn’t. It might have been a little too conventional at times, but Vassena writes fluidly, making it nice enough to read and entertaining.

Summarizing: won’t be new favorite book but I certainly don’t mind having read it.