I don’t know what I was expecting but this was better. The stream of consciousness made me feel like I was in Cyril’s head and I was almost anxious the story was so suspenseful at times. Justice for Veck.

Thanks you NetGalley for the arc

This was kind of crazy from the start. Love this author and how he can twist Christian themes into gritty horror survival stuff such as this. Whalefall was david and the whale and in this one the army finds a fallen angel and uses him to try to win the war. This book starts really brutal and the MMC really emphasizes how gritty and disgusting it is in wartime and how some men have all the luck and yet none of it. This book is formatted in a really weird way and kept taking me out of the story but thanks to the actual content in here I kept reading despite it. I really love how Daniel Kraus just keeps coming with these hard hitting hits, let's keep them coming. Plus thank you to the publisher for also sending me a physical copy in the mail as well as granting me this ebook version as well.

A book with an interesting concept. There aren't many World War 1 novels around these days, and fewer still World War 1 novels that involve finding angels in distress. The provocative writing style is sure to engage the arthouse crowd, but will likely push away the average reader.

Whalefall was my first foray into Daniel Kraus’s writing and I could not get enough of it! It was only natural that I would then be just as ecstatic for his latest book, Angel Down. It took me a bit to get used to the style of writing that Kraus used for this novel which, at first, made it hard to enjoy and get into the story. Given the style it was written in, it made the whole novel feel like one long stream of consciousness which, to me, detracted a bit from the enjoyment of the story. Kraus used descriptions to perfection allowing me to picture the story in my mind like a movie and some parts had me chuckling to myself. All in all, Kraus tells a very descriptive and believable war story with characters you will either love or hate. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed Whale Fall, I couldn’t quite get into Angel Down. I would still recommend it if you are a fan of Kraus, however.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read this ARC!

This book was incredibly interesting. I was all in on this one, until the very end. Things really went off the rails there and it was a bit much for me, but overall very good.

This was such a well written atmospheric story! His books are so unique which I love so much! So many emotions throughout!

🌟 Book Review 🌟

Wow. Just wow. This was an incredibly written story about war, sacrifice, kinship, and what happens when our faith and morality are tested.

Our MC, Bagger, is deployed in France during WWI. He’s a nobody and is there to help bury the dead. When one day he’s sent to go find a fallen comrade who turns out to be a fallen Angel. Bagger has been a cheat and a swindler his entire life, even though he was raised in church to religious father. He knows he must protect this Angel at all costs, but what can he get out of it? If he stays alive long enough. This was wild, horrific, ambitious, and so detailed you felt like you were on the frontlines also watching it all unfold. The prose is unlike anything I’ve read before along with the formatting. I can’t recommend this one enough.

A huge thanks to @atriabooks for the ARC! Preorder now! Drops July 29th, 2025! @kraus_author

Summary:

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #horrorbookstagram #horrorbooks #historicalfiction #worldwar1 #readmorebooks #readmorehorror #booksaboutwar #atriabooks #bookreview #bookrecommendations

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

I was really intrigued by this one! However, I just couldn’t get into the story. My biggest complaint is that it was written with stream of consciousness and there are no periods. That just really bothered me and I couldn’t get into the story.

I’m sure others will be fine with that style of writing but I just couldn’t do it unfortunately.

I hope others love this one.

**Thank you so much to NetGalley/Atria Books/Daniel Kraus for this eARC of Angel Down - expected pub date July 29th, 2025.**

In this novel we are transported to a World War I battleground where an Angel has been shot down by a human missile. A group of soldiers then hear ear piercing screaming coming from the battlefield- and are sent out by their captain to mercy the (assumed) injured soldier.
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The story itself was a really unique idea, and there are definitely scenes that stick out in my memory. The writing style took me a little while to get used to since every paragraph starts with the word 'and.' After a few chapters the book started to feel really repetitive for me and I found myself skimming instead of really getting immersed in the story.

Relentless, endearing, shocking... This story of WWI soldiers who find a celestial being on the battlefield is the literary equivalent of a one-shot war movie.

I think Daniel is an evil genius. Whalefall was a favorites of mine. While Angel Down really took me some time to get used to, I loved it. It will not be for everyone, as the writing is so unqiue.

Plowing forward like armored WW1 tanks designed to break through enemy trenches, Kraus's narrative straightway, composed entirely of one novel-length sentence in which dialogue, monologue, exposition, and action meld into a rutted stream of battlefield gore, explores the darkest aspects of the classic war story with an ensemble cast rivaling the Dirty Dozen. Private Bagger confronts the classic tropes of war stories - survival, loyalty, bravery, fear, sacrifice, and existential angst - as his personal mission to avoid combat gets derailed by the intervention of a beatific and possibly monstrous stranded angel. Artfully blending symbolism, surrealism and gritty realism, Kraus explores new territory with Angel Down, but readers will recognize the characteristic empathetic appeal of the anti-hero protagonist as seen in his earlier works.

Thank you to Atria books for the ARC of Angel Down.

This is a unique and moving story.

The formatting of the story may not be for everyone, every paragraph starts with AND.

Private Bagger is no hero and is upfront about it in the story. When the group comes upon the angel it seems they’ve truly come upon a miracle, but it doesn’t seem to work out for them,

I know this story will stick with me for a long time.

Angel Down is a powerful novel that showcases Kraus’s exceptional literary talent. Boldly original and stylistically inventive, the book navigates the harrowing terrain of war with a rare combination of emotional depth and intellectual precision. Kraus masterfully balances brutality with beauty, horror with hope, crafting a narrative that is as devastating as it is original.

The novel’s structure is one like I have never read before, where every paragraph starts with 'and' and there are no periods. The entire length of the novel is one run-on sentence, stream-of-consciouness in style without being confusing or wandering, enhancing the emotional and horrific weight of the story. It won't work for some, but it definitely worked for me. Angel Down confronts themes of humanity, desire, mortality, and what it truly means to live (and die). The imagery, particularly in its portrayal of war, is grotesque and violent.

This is a novel that challenges, moves, and ultimately transforms its reader. Intellectually ambitious and beautifully written, Angel Down is the kind of book that defines what literature can achieve.

Thank you to the publisher for the e-arc! All opinions are my own.

“I am not the hand that kills. I am the sword in the hand,”

I wanted to read Angel Down ever since Daniel reveled the premise for it a while back on social media. I have previously read and loved Blood Sugar, The Ghost That Ate Us, and of course Whalefall.

Angel Down is such a great premise and executed with skill and not a short amount of “balls” to pull off the format as it was written. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about the structure and all the ands…

I almost can’t believe he pulled it off…wait, yes, I can. He’s that good and I was not disappointed.

Excellent all around. A fantastic read and highly recommended.

and I thought, “Have you ever read a book and thought ‘this is a modern classic’?,” I know for a fact this book will be dissected and discussed in English classes across America, this is a masterpiece along the lines of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-five,

and the horrors of war are pervasive throughout this story, viscerally described and evoking so much pain and emotion, the descriptions of the gore made me pause and reread things because of how specific and strange they were at times, while feeling at the same time like this description alone could not capture the horror of what happened in World War I,

and as in Whalefall, there is a good bit of discussion on Bagger’s relationship with his father, exploring regret about how their relationship was before his father’s death and what he might want to do to fix that,

and the thing that stands out the most besides the evocative descriptions of horror, is the writing style and format for this book, I am so impressed with how Kraus pulled of this ambitious literary approach to telling this story - a story that has no periods outside of dialogue and reads like one never ending sentence, yet one that we knew was coming,

“...just like the war won’t ever end, like the carnage won’t ever end, it’s a sentence in a book careening without periods, gasping with too many commas, a sentence that, once begun, can’t ever be stopped, a sentence doomed to loop back on itself to form a terrible black wheel that, sooner or later, will drag each and every person to their grave,”

and I will leave you with this, read this if you want something that might just change you literarily, something that will blow your mind, something strange, something horrific, something so undefinably good that you will be thinking about this book for the rest of your life,

and five stars,

and,

and,

and, I consider myself so lucky to have gotten to read this

Thank you to @atriabooks for the ARC of the book. All thoughts are my own.

Let me preface this by saying that the formatting of this book isn't for everyone. You can tell, literally, by the first word, if this is the kind of book you'll be able to stomach. At first I thought I wouldn't enjoy a book that seems to start and continue from the middle of a stream of consciousness, but I'm so glad that I gave it a chance. Each paragraph, if you want to call them that, and even the book itself, starts with, "and," and it continues as one long run-on sentence until the very end. It's definitely unlike anything I've read before.

Once again, Daniel Kraus has surprised me with his creativity and his poignant depiction of what it means to be human. The story follows Cyril Bagger, a charlatan and a cynic whose perspective and grapplings with his own faith are challenged when he and a few members of his squadron are sent to locate what sounds like a fellow soldier in distress. This book describes, in exquisitely horrific detail, the horrors of war, the horrors of what humans will do to serve themselves, and the dichotomy of horror and hope in the human condition. It is absolutely breathtaking.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria publishing for an advanced copy of this ebook!

Angel Down is such a groundbreaking novel. This story and the way it is written is so unique and special. In a nutshell, we follow Bagger, who mainly digs latrines, during World War 1. One of his superiors calls upon him and a few of his comrades to venture into No Man's Land to euthanize a fallen soldier. They end up finding a celestial being, injured by artillery. As the story unfolds, it casts a bleak light on the sheer horror and chaos of war, the brutality of it and the ugliness that can be found in humanity when you are up against the most terrible things a human can experience. There were times I had to put this down while I was reading because it made me feel so anxious and uncomfortable. I feel that Daniel did something super special here. Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC. You can pick this up when it publishes July 29, 2025!

Private Cyril Bagger is a conman turned soldier fighting in World War I when he and four other soldiers are tasked with taking care of a wounded comrade on the battlefield. But when Bagger approaches the soldier, he sees and rescues a fallen angel instead. With intense and disturbing descriptions of the horror of battle, well-developed characters grappling with their own desires, and Bagger’s perspective that is unending with no periods and commas leading to the next paragraph, this read is an unputdownable historical horror book.

As someone who never shut up about Whalefall, I had very high expectations for Angel Down by Daniel Kraus. From a very high level view - this book is the story of a solder during World War 1, who would absolutely rather be back home swindling people, who gets tasked with the terrible job of crossing no man's land to end the life of a fallen soldier who won't stop screaming. What he finds when he gets there is nothing short of a miracle - an angel who has been shot down. That is the very basic synopsis of what the book is about but I assure you that there is nothing basic about this book at all.

When I first started reading this story, which starts in the middle of a sentence and that seemingly never ends, I was a little uncertain of the readability. Would I like the style? Would I be able to keep up with the story that was just one long never-ending sentence? The book is written almost lyrically in a way that gives the story a great rhythm - something that kept me propelled forward just as much as the narrative itself. The story that unfolded was one about greed and power and what dark desires can be uncovered when given the opportunity to meet a being that can make them come true.

At the heart of the story is Cyril Bagger, a man notorious for trying to avoid any combat by taking on the lowest duties (grave & latrine digging), who (prior to the war) spent all of his time swindling people for their money. He starts as someone lost and directionless, someone who wants no responsibility and nothing to do with the war but the way his character evolves over the period of a few days in the presence of the angel could potentially be one of my favorite character arcs that I've read all year, maybe ever. There are tiny hints that he might be a better person than he seems, but as the story progresses and his decisions become more dire it's obvious that he's a man who is going to try to do the right thing, even if his extremely flawed nature sometimes gets in the way of that.

In the end, I don't know if I loved this book as much as I did Whalefall, but it's certainly close. Close enough to merit a 5 star review and me recommending this to anyone who will listen, much the way I did with Whalefall.