Fallen - Review

Fallen (Fallen, # 1)

By: Lauren Kate

Published: January 1, 2009 by Delacorte Press

452 pages

Genre: YA, Paranormal, Fantasy

Source: Borrowed from my friend, Paula

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Goodreads description--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.

I'm giving Fallen ****. This was another book that I put off reading because of a review I read on Amazon. But I just could not get over the cover art. I know, I know. Never judge a book by its cover. But sometimes you just get a feeling about a book, and I say go with it. You just never know what you're going to get. Could turn out to be a waste of time and you wish you could have those hours back. Or you could fall in love with the story and the characters. At the very least, it could be mildly entertaining and help you pass the time until you come across the next book/series that blows you away.

As always, I'm going to do my best to review this one without any spoilers. That being said, I think you can tell what I'm about to say just by reading the prologue. So...I have to say I'm quite the sucker for relationships with history. The "soulmate principle" as I like to call it. And this book didn't disappoint.

Many of my questions were answered in time throughout this book and many new questions were created there at the end. One of my initial questions was about how Daniel treats Luce. The wishy-washy bordering on downright mean behavior towards her. But Lauren Kate explains that quite nicely. The shadows that pop up around Luce all the time, that was something I was trying to figure out the whole time. I didn't get the right answer exactly, but I like what they turned out to be. But there at the end, specifically the last few pages created a whole new set of questions that I can't wait to explorer and uncover in book 2, Torment.

Though this was the most major question of all, "what is Daniel exactly?", I don't think Lauren Kate really tried to keep that answer a secret. That was the biggest negative thing I read in the review on Amazon that was holding me back from pursuing this one. The writer of that review remarked that it wasn't a big surprise what Daniel turned out to be (paraphrasing here). And while that's true, I don't think Lauren Kate intended it to be a big secret. She dropped hints that just about directly named his species from pretty early on in the book. And so while this felt like a huge question, it wasn't really. Yet, I don't feel like the book suffered because of it. I think there are plenty of other questions surrounding Luce and the story that prevent this question's answer from being a make-or-break factor.

Not really sure if I would call the ending a cliffhanger. In the sense that an unexpected event occurred that called some things the read believes to be fact into question, it was. But the event itself was not so mind-blowing that I would consider it a cliffhanger. It most definitely piqued my interest and I am very much looking forward to reading Torment soon.

Waiting to see what all books I get for Christmas to decide what I'm going to read next. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Check out Fallen by Lauren Kate. 4 Stars.

*Updated: September 6, 2013