Review - Fallen

Author: Lauren Kate
Series: First book in the Fallen series
Publication date: December 8th, 2009
Pages: 476
My rating: ♔ ♔ ♔

Summary

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.

Review

I felt like this book had great potential. Angels, unlike vampires, haven't been done over and over again. Luce feels that she's known Daniel her whole life. She's able to see shadows that aren't visible to anyone else. Or so she thinks. These are all great ideas, and it's a shame Lauren Kate didn't fully explore them until almost the very end. 

It took me a while to get into this book. More than 230 pages, to be exact. That's nearly half the book. As soon as Luce arrives at her new school, she starts obsessing over Daniel. And that's what the first half of the book is about. Luce pretty much stalking and obsessing over a guy that tries his hardest to ignore and avoid her. Eerily reminiscent of Twilight, isn't it? Throughout the first 200 pages or so, there were things that hinted at something exciting that could finally happen, but nothing did. 

Around 230 pages in (why do I remember the exact numbers?) something finally happened. Luce and her friend Penn are in the school library, when Luce starts seeing the shadows again. Only this time they are darker than before. A fire starts seemingly out of nowhere, and it looks like the shadows have something to do with it. For a few pages the action is really intense and super exciting. But as soon as Luce recovers from the fire, she's back to obsessing over Daniel in a very Bella-like fashion. This drags on for about a hundred more pages, until we get a bit of action again. 

Much later on in the book, Daniel finally explains to Luce why hes been trying to avoid her and she realizes he's an angel. I wish Lauren Kate had somehow shown us all of this throughout the book, instead of Daniel just telling Luce everything. But starting with this moment the book was very enjoyable until the very end. Now that Luce understands everything, she stops stalking Daniel and there's a lot of action. Luce's friends and classmates turn out to be angels as well, only some of them are good and some bad.  The two opposing sides fight, but they can never completely destroy each other. 

I wasn't really into the book at first, and I felt like it's just the Twilight of angel YA books, but the ending made me comepletely change my mind. Now I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the Fallen series.