RATING: 3.5/5
SYNOPSIS
According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.
And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .
REVIEW
Picked up this book because of the TV adaptation of the same by Amazon.
I love the creativity of this story! We follow an Angel, Aziraphale and a Demon, Crowley whereby they have lived on Earth since the beginning of time. They have also formed a unique friendship and were attached to all the wonderful things in Earth. Eleven years ago, Crowley was given the anti-Christ by the Below to swap for a normal human child in preparation of the events leading to the end of the world. However, there is a bit of a mix-up (between him and the satanic nuns of The Chattering Order) and he loses track of the anti-Christ. Eleven years after, both Aziraphale and Crowley realized the mistake made and were trying to find the anti-Christ to stop the end of the world. There are also a lot of sub-plots with sub-characters such as the Witch who has a book of prophecies written by her ancestor, Witchfinders, the Four Horsemen (loved their sub-plots a lot!), the THEM which comprises of a group of pre-teens (led by Adam, who is apparently, the Anti-Christ). These sub-plots were beautifully linked together leading towards the final piece of the puzzle.
This book started off so strong but then it fell flat from the second half of the book onwards. I understand that Terry Pratchett has a unique writing style with obvious humor element incorporated into his stories. But honestly, sometimes I don’t get his joke. And sometimes I think he tried too hard to be funny. After introducing Aziraphale and Crowley’s characterization, I wanted to read more on their relationship but unfortunately it was taken over by the other sub-plots. Halfway through the story, the plot suffers from the usual pacing problem and it gets super slow.
I have then watched the TV series and felt that the adaptation is so much better than this book! It focuses a lot on the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. I also can appreciate the humor element of this story more via the adaptation. All in all, this is only a 3.5/5 star read for me (the adaptation on the other hand, deserves a 4.5/5 star rating!), but as i said, i do love the creativity of the story.
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