Fallen by Lauren Kate

December 2009, DoubleDay Children's

464 pages, Paperback

Review Copy

Young Adult, fantasy

Cushions: 4

Daggers: 1

Paperclips: 1

Smiles: 1

Tears: 3

Yunaleska's recommended rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Summary from Random House Children's Books

What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours?

17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . . . only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good & evil forces plot to keep them apart.

Confession: I had both a personal copy and a review copy of this book. I requested it before I entered a competition. I won a copy here.

Even I can see no reason to have 2 copies of a book, which is why this weekend I'll be launching a competition to win a copy of Fallen!

Fallen is awesome. It was a book everyone in the blog circles I visit were talking about. I was intrigued by prologue, but the real hook for me was chapter one. Initially I did think that Luce was at a supercool academy for learning to fight with swords. As a fan of medieval/magic schools, I was like 'yay'. It didn't take much longer to prove that wasn't the case. Luce has a past, a past which has her living in a secure school with other youngsters who I'd term as 'wayward nutters'.

Luce has a sweet nature. She doesn't seem to belong behind bars, with an unrestricted uniform (as long as everything is black), where there's no cheerful decor, where phone calls are restricted once a week. And yet throughout Fallen, she begins tI lio fit in, in her own way. She manages to make friends, a good one being one girl who isn't there for misconduct. She gets to swim, a hobby that she enjoys taking up (although not so fun in a manky swimming costume). And she gets drawn and pushed away by Daniel. Daniel, who is destined to love her forever. Luce learns to love him back.

The discovery of what Daniel is, who Luce herself really is, and the forces which exist to keep them apart made a thrilling read. I liked how whenever Luce got closer to the truth, more events would occur to keep her from discovering the information. I liked how characters were never what they seemed, unexpected alliances were made and broken before my eyes. There is no adjective to accurately describe the build up to the end. Cool, awesome, amazing - I loved it! I think the history of Luce and Daniel's story is set in Fallen, and I hope Tantalize will be action packed; it was only at the end of the book that a whole new world is opened up to Luce. A world I'm looking forward to exploring (not necessarily a new world as in a new planet, but new characters and the new powers .

The only small quibble is that I would have loved to have more action surrounding the shadows, more emphasis placed on them earlier on in the book. Pacing on that front felt a little slow to me - Luce's story is fascinating, but sometimes I wanted a bit of action or intrigue. They then showed up a page or two later.

Yes, I cheated and peeked at the end of Fallen. Not that it made much sense without reading the entire book. I may be a book addict, but I do like to have a clue if the characters I like survive. A bad habit, I know.

I hope to be near the start of the line for reviewing the second book in the series, Torment due out in September.

Find out more about Lauren Kate on her website.

Similar books: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl