Kissed By An Angel

Elizabeth Chandler’s Kissed by An Angel kept me turning the pages until the very end. The book made me look at love in an entirely different way, and I’ll never forget the countless lessons this story taught me.

Though this novel was intended as a thrilling suspense story, there were also many lessons about love and life. A theme that I interpreted was not to let grief rule your life. Being sad and grieving is perfectly acceptable after a death or tragic accident, but if people let it rule their lives then they are not really living. People still need to get out and learn how to live with the sudden change they have experienced. Another theme of the book is realizing that those we love never truly leave us. They may not be with us like Tristan was there for Ivy in the novel, but they will always be in our hearts and minds. The last theme of the book that really stuck with me was to be open to love from all places. Just because a person may have lost a love does not mean that he or she should not accept it again. Though love can never be the same from more than one person, a different love can be just as good. All people need to let themselves love again after a tragedy, for without love in our lives we are not really living.

I loved the style of this book. The author alternated between the two main characters points of view. Ivy is a teenage girl whose mother just got remarried. She has a new step-brother named Gregory. Ivy ends up dating a boy named Tristan, who her friends have been trying to get her to talk to for a long time. When Tristan and Ivy are in a car accident because of dysfunctional brakes, Ivy is devastated that Tristan did not survive. The book follows Ivy in her struggle to get over Tristan and her attempts to find the cause of all the bizarre events happening to her and others all over the town. When the book switches points of view, it follows Tristan trying to find ways to comfort Ivy and let her know he is there, and also follows him as he investigates what’s going on around the city. When he finds out he desperately tries to warn Ivy of the danger that she is in, while also trying to use her friends and a mysterious boy named Will to convey the message and keep her safe.

In this book, Ivy’s life is going pretty good. She’s a little apprehensive about her new step-dad and step-brother, but all in all things are not bad. She has a great boyfriend whom she loves dearly. Then one night, while out making a delivery for work, she sees a mysterious figure in the windows of a dark house. Weeks later Ivy goes on a date with Tristan. On the way to the restaurant the brakes stop working and the two are in an awful wreck, which Ivy survives and Tristan does not. After Tristan’s death, Ivy is constantly mourning and is oddly comforted by her step-brother, Gregory, but she is rudely awakened when horrible things start happening to people around town, and she finds her cat being constantly hurt. Weird things start to happen to her too and she begins to fear for her life.

Tristan discovers that his ghost remained on Earth to fulfill some mission. He learns of the evil going on in the town and spends all his time attempting to save Ivy. He uses her friends to give her warnings and keep her safe, and eventually she learns that Tristan is there even though she can’t see him. When the bad guy around targets Ivy as his next victim, she learns that she can’t trust anybody and she decides to solve the mystery for herself.

I would recommend this book for any girl. The book teaches many life lessons and could help girls cope with many different situations. Boys probably would not like this book very much, mainly because it’s filled with love and grief, the two things boys like to avoid most.