Review: Fallen by Lauren Kate

Series: Fallen, book #1

Published: December 8th 2009

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Details: Hardcover, 452 pages

My Rating: 2/5

My Summary:

Luce is a girl with some unusual problems, who is sent to reform school by her parents. There she meets two mysterious guys, Daniel – who she feels she knows from before, and Cam. Who can she trust? Plot involves fallen angels. Well written, but very slow pace and too many question marks left hanging at the end. Overall, just OK. Sequel Torment out soon.

My Full Review:

This book has got some mixed reviews, but is generally recommended by Twilight fans, so I decided to read it and see for myself.

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

My thoughts:

I liked the premise of this book as it was a bit different. Luce is a girl who’s been having some unusual problems for the last couple of years (explained in the book), culminating in a terrible accident involving the death of a boy in her school the previous summer. Consequently she is sent to Swords and Cross, a reform school for troubled kids. And this is where we are introduced into the story.

Along with Luce we get to discover the strict rules of the school, the strange atmosphere lingering at the school grounds as if there are secrets lurking around. We also learn more about the other troubled kids. Luce gets to know two seemingly nice girls, acquires one girl enemy for reasons unknown to her, and attracts the attention of two mysterious and good-looking boys, Cam and Daniel.

Luce is unsettled by quite a few things. She is still dealing with guilt from what happened the previous summer, and she is also trying to get used to the idea of having been sent to this reform school. However, Daniel is what unsettles her the most. His behaviour is strange, to say the least, yet she can’t shake off the feeling that she has known him before, and she is intrigued to find out more about him.

This very premise goes on for most part of the book. As a reader, you are left with the feeling that no one can really be trusted, and that there is something more going on, something supernatural. Somehow this involves Luce and Daniel, and possibly someone else, but who?

All though the book is really well written, I found the pace a bit too slow. It is slowly building up towards the big finale, but it just takes ages to get there and I struggled to keep up my interest as I was reading. Especially since I saw what was coming miles ahead.

I know this book has been compared a lot with Hush Hush seeing as they both share the same theme. However, even though Hush Hush was not as beautifully written as Fallen, the former grabbed me more. I literally could not stop reading it. With Fallen, I had no problems whatsoever leaving it for a few days, even towards the end. It just didn’t stick with me the same way. I believe it was because of combination of two things: the pace was too slow and I could see things coming from miles away. The latter meant that I had to wait for ages for our heroine to figure out the same things I had known all along. It made it slightly..boring..for lack of a better word.

The Bottom Line:

So, would I recommend Fallen?

Well, it wasn’t all bad. But it is very “putdownable”. Not a book that will sweep you away. Yet sort of enjoyable because of the atmosphere Kate has created. However, the ending dragged the grade down, as there were to many loose ends left hanging. I felt like I was taken through all that slow suspense and build up only to end at..oh get the next book and you’ll find out. Speakin of which, there is a sequel Torment out soon, which I may read..or not.