Fallen by Lauren Kate-Review

Fallen by Lauren Kate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Fallen is the story of seventeen year old Lucinda (or Luce as she is known) a girl with a normal life until she's a suspect in her boyfriends mysterious, fiery death. Because of this, she is sent to Sword & Cross, a run down, intimidating reform school.

As soon as she arrives, we meet plenty of new characters. There's Arriane, the bad ass punk chick, who may or may not be trustworthy, there's Cam, good looking and desperate to be Luce's boyfriend, and most importantly, there's Daniel Grigiori. The minute Luce lays her eyes on Daniel, she gets the strangest feeling like they've met before. . .

This is elaborated wonderfully throughout each chapter, giving us little clues one by one to keep us guessing why Luce and Daniel are drawn together.

She falls in love with the good-looking and highly intelligent Daniel, but soon discovers that he is a fallen angel, cursed, and destined neither to ascend to Heaven nor descend to Hell. The two realize that they have spent their lifetimes finding and losing one another, and face the final challenge to keep evil forces at bay and seek redemption for all.

Luce herself is overall a nice girl, she is a teenager and she talks and behaves like a teenager. Although she may not be to everyone’s taste, readers of the same age will connect with Luce and very quickly find themselves falling completely under the book’s spell. There are times that Luce was a little dense, but then she would do something unexpected and feisty to make her warm to me even more. I have a feeling that as the series progresses, she will develop and become stronger, sassier and a compassionate female lead.

The setting of this story, is delightfully gothic, the highlight being the church that has been turned into a natatorium. The excerpt below shows Luce’s first impressions when encountering this wonderful creation:

“Inside the humid natatorium she instantly understood what Penn was talking about. The pool itself was giant, Olympic-sized, one of the few state-of-the-art features she’d encountered so far on this campus. But that wasn’t what made it remarkable, Luce realized in awe. This pool had been set down right in the middle of what used to be a massive church.”
Fallen: Chapter 6 - No Salvation

As Fallen comes to an end, there are still many unanswered questions that will leave its new fans eagerly anticipating the sequel, Torment. Who will this book appeal to most? Usually teenagers, if the lead characters are teenagers. BUT as I am not a teen, and still love the story, I would not rule it out. So give it a chance. To me it was a refreshing take on the fallen angel’s angle.

Lauren Kate's writing is very accomplished, The reader’s interest is engaged early and, helped by a solid and ever-evolving plot, never lets go. This is a gothic love story featuring fallen angels and forbidden love (a winning formula) that will thrill and delight in equal measure.

Be sure to pick up Torment and Passion and also a nice extra novel called Fallen in Love (3.5) which you can read after book 3. Soon Rapture will be out to find out the conclusion to this story. (June 12 2012)

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