Wednesday 22 August 2012

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Title: Fallen
Author: Lauren Kate
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Page Count: 452
Publication Date: December 8th 2009

Synopsis:

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce – he goes out of his way to make that very clear. But she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Luce has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret...even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, FALLEN is a page-turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

What I Thought:

After an accident, our main character, 17 year old Lucinda Price or Luce as she’s more commonly called receives a court order saying she is to be removed from her private school and placed in a school for the mentally unstable, although it turns out to be more of a school for fallen angels.

I’ll have to start by saying I found Luce’s character quite boring and even irritating at times. Her obsession with Daniel (a fallen angel) is difficult to believe because he’s so horrible to her. Then to complete the obvious love triangle we have Cam who is another fallen angel but is considerably kinder to Luce. The reason for their opposite behaviour is that they both have ulterior motives.

My main problem with the book is the lack of realistic actions. I suppose we’re meant to assume that the reason Luce is drawn to Daniel is the work of an unearthly force or that Luce really is mentally unstable, so much so her better judgement is affected in a negative way. Ironically this poor judgement puts her in a better situation in the end as a certain someone turns out to be not as nice as you might think. I won’t ruin it for you.

Another problem I had was that the Luce escaped death so often, at the cost of someone else’s life. In many situations it was obvious she wasn’t going to die but I couldn’t help but wonder why. Well, that was until I finished the book, but by then I had another question.

Why didn’t I like Luce? Well I’m not saying she’s the only one in the world of books who does this but I feel she is the embodiment of anti-feminism. Now, I don’t expect or even want every female lead to be a feminist, but I do expect them to have some dignity. We later find out Luce thinks quite a lot of herself in a dialog she has with Daniel where she trying to convince him into believing she’s smart. The problem is by this point even I wasn’t sure what to think of Luce as everything she does makes us think she must have a terribly low self-esteem if she’s accepting the way Daniel treats her.

If you like fallen angels you might like this.

Rating: 2/5

6 comments :

  1. Its a shame you didn't like this book. I was unsure about it when I first read it a while back. Nice review though!
    Amy
    http://teenyreader.blogspot.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Amy

    Thanks Amy. I think I might have been expecting a bit much when I read this book and I just found it a bit boring.

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  3. @Christine (Rainy Day Reads)

    Thank you so much! I'm following your blog back which is also lovely by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice review! Too bad this book wasn't as good as the cover I guess :| I love your blog btw and followed it!

    Leigh | Little Book Star

    ReplyDelete
  5. @littlebookstar

    Thanks Leigh, I'm following your blog through Linky.

    ReplyDelete
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