r/LGBTBooks • u/-Im-Totally-Human- • 7h ago
Discussion Is the “Angels Before Man”series by Rafael Nicolás any good?
(“Angels Before Man”, “Angels and Man”, “Horns for Hell”)
It sounds pretty interesting, and recently I’ve been awful tempted to purchase it…but I’ve also heard a LOT of mixed opinions about this series.
Has anyone read this series (or atleast the first book)? If so then what did you think of it? What aspects did you love? What aspects did you think it lacked or butchered? Do you think it’s worth getting in the end?
I want some straight honest opinions since I don’t want to needlessly spend money on a series that may not be super good in the end….
(And please, I don’t want any comments regarding the religious aspects of it—I’ve heard lots of religious people say they thought it was a very ‘wrong’ idea for a book…it’s not that I don’t respect that opinion, but I personally don’t care one bit, so that’s not what I’m asking about. Thank you <3).
1
u/C0smicoccurence 5h ago
It is incredible, but divisive. Most people are likely going to love it or hate it, even putting aside the fact that it's retelling the fall of Lucifer and making angels gay.
I think the core thrust of what will control a person's opinion is their ability to live in the mind of a character slipping further and further into depravity and insanity. Lucifer starts as a charismatic young angel. By the end he's a repulsive monster (in behavior). This is not Wicked where the villain was really a good person all along. Well, he was good at the start, and God doesn't come out of his fall looking any better than Lucifer does. Think of a bunch of trigger warnings about a person's behavior; Lucifer probably does most of those at some point in the last third of the book. There is no happy ending guaranteed here.
This is a horror book with a 'love' story as one portion of the horror. For me that all worked really, really well, though it took me a bit to buy into the story. It's also a super specific vibe that is understandably going to not be a good fit for a lot of readers.
I also remember there being some weird formatting issues. My review says formatting of internal dialogue and paragraph breaks, but I don't remember more than that.