Angels and demons, heavenly wars and evil temptations, these are all becoming popular subjects for YA fiction. Fallen angels have been gaining more and more momentum as alluring main characters, and authors are taking note. Lauren Kate’s Fallen series has taken the YA world by storm. The first book, Fallen, published by Ember Books, is the beginning of a tale of love, pain, and memories.
Luce Price is slowly healing. After a traumatic event that took the life of a boy she had feelings for, Luce is used to the evil glares, the hate mail, and the scared looks on her parents’ faces. After being bounced around from shrink to boarding school, Luce has finally landed at the Sword & Cross reform school. Unfortunately, the creepy shadows that have plagued her for years have followed her here as well.
As soon as she enters the concrete prison-like facility, Luce realizes that this is the end of the line for her, and also the opportunity for a fresh start. She begins to make friends and relax into her schedule of demanding classes and slightly psychotic students. However, any resemblance of normalcy that she may have been feeling evaporates when she locks eyes with him. Daniel Grigori. She knows that she’s never seen him before, she’d remember someone as devastatingly handsome as he is, but at the same time Luce is absolutely sure that she knows him from somewhere. The problem is that Daniel cringes at the sight of her and makes it perfectly clear that he wants to stay as far away from her as possible. And despite interest from sweet, gorgeous Cam, Luce can’t help but notice that Daniel has a light that resonates from within and he always seems to know when she’s in trouble.
Kate’s story is interesting, mysterious, and not completely what you’d expect from a YA novel. People die. Hearts are broken. Betrayal is in the air. Luce’s obsession with Daniel is borderline pathetic, which may frustrate a lot of female readers. You’ll understand why as the story goes on, but it’s hard to handle the main character literally tripping over herself to get to her love interest. One of the good things is that the other characters are brilliant. Arianne and Penn are girls that you’ll find yourself wanting to befriend. Not a lot of questions are answered, which is a good and bad thing. It makes you want to read the next book, but you’re left feeling confused right along with Luce. As the reader, you’re forced to discover things at Luce’s pace, which is slow. However, Kate does not shy away from what heavenly battles entail, which is suffering, pain, and death. This is definitely a book to curl up with and devour!
You can find Fallen at any of Tulsa’s local book stores: Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Gardners.
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