Fallen
author: Lauren Kate
genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult
books: Fallen / Torment / Passion / Rapture
shelves: awesome-covers, huh, insta-love, so-slow-paced-it-ain't-even-funny, dialga-will-like-it, dumb-heroine, dumb-love-interest, dumb-romance, hated-it, plot-absence, shut-the-hell-up, this-is-not-love, wasted-potential, worst-of-the-worst, yaaaaaawn
rating: Kill it with fire!
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.
Now, at my new school, they got even stronger.
Such a shame. So much potential going to waste, such an awesome idea eventually being so deformed that it's only good for the garbage. You know, I actually liked the first book. It got three and a half bloodroses on my German blog, because it might have been a big pile of shit, but still I enjoyed Fallen very much, mainly because of the amazing background characters. Torment was on the edge of fine, but boring as hell. And then there was Passion, which lives up to its name because I hated it with burning passion, and I am not lying if I declare this the worst book I've ever read, which makes Fallen one of the worst series I've ever read, hence the lowest rating. Yeah, I could have reviewed the books seperately but in the end, even if I look back to the first book, the Fallen series is shit. So... Sorry? I guess?
But let me tell a little story first, shall we?
I'm just writing some kind of fanfiction, though that may be the wrong word - its story is pretty much alike to that of the Fallen series, but it has two main characters. The first one, Ginger, is part of the dies-when-kissed-thing, and her love interest, Jeremy, is the fallen angel who completes this lovestory. But Jer is no Daniel, who's an abusive boyfriend, and Ginger is no Luce, who doesn't even care for that fact because LOOOOVE. I'm not an amazing author, but I bet the outcome will be better than the one of this series.
The other character is named Persephone... Or at least that's the name she gave herself, her real name is Sophia. She's a 'shadow', my equivalent of the Fallen demons, and a pretty powerful one, also a big leader of the Angel Unity, where shadows and true angels (the so-called 'good angels') alike fight against the 'lightless' (AKA my Outcasts) and try to keep the fragile peace they achieved after milleniums of war between shadows and true angels. There are epic fights, Sophia falls in love too, with a weaker shadow, and in the end the war is unpreventable.
Why am I telling you this? Well, look at that, and than look at Fallen. Everything I write in Starfall, which is the name of the story, is based on Fallen. Okay, maybe not the Angel Unity thing, but that was some idea of mine thinking about how some kind of unity like this could work - based on Fallen too. But instead of the, hm original, Starfall won't have a sappy romance that doesn't consist of love, but subjection, it will have a lovestory that's actually believable - if I manage to make it feel believable, that is - and the war everyone announced in Fallen will actually by part of Starfall and you can see it through the eyes of a girl who lived her whole life with that war, whose only wish it is to prevent the peace from ever breaking again, just to shatter this wish at the end...
This is my view of a good story. The thing is, Fallen had the potential to be as awesome as what I just told you, but instead of using it and creating a story I would have adored, the whole plot circeled around a stupid heroine who has no character, an abusive, unsympathetic love interest and their so-called 'love' where you can feel nothing. Oh, and deus ex machina, a whole lot of Mary Sue-ness (the bad kind. Not the 'she is perfect, but she still feels human, so for me she isn't Mary Sue while she may be for others', but the 'damn, this girl can do everything, be the most awesome thing ever, everybody loves her and still she has no character!' kind of Mary Sue) and not to forget plot holes, plot holes everywhere. And logical issues. Lauren Kate seems to forget her own rules sometimes. All demons have golden wings... Why are Molly's cupper-colored then?!
Luce is by far the worst heroine I've read of. Not only is she the bad kind of Mary Sue as explained, but she's just completely stupid! The thing is, the story tells us she isn't. She's able to speak French very well and she uses great vocabulary and oh my gosh, she loves maths! She must be a genius! But when it comes to important things, like, saving the world and shit, or realizing her boyfriend treats her as if they lived in some time where women were property, she fails at bringing any of her brain cells to work. And it's devastating.
Daniel isn't better. You probably know by now that I hate him, I think I made that clear enough, and also the fact that he's an abusive boyfriend, and yet everybody seems to love him. Except Cam. At the beginning. That's the point where I usually scream "WHY THE FUCK QWDBZIGKFDDFBHFWHKIOHARGH", but actually, I'm already exhausted and my whole anger went away when I wrote my original Passion review and now it's all gone and I can't even rant anymore. At least not as much as I'd like to. ;A;
The redeeming quality this book has is its side characters. There's Cam, who I absolutely love, there's Arriane, one of the funniest crazy characters I know, there's Gabbe and Molly who I didn't care much for but they were fine, there's Roland, who's pretty cool... Even the characters who are introduced later, like Dee, managed to be sympathetic and likeable. Hell, even Lucifer was a better character than Luce and Daniel! And he was the big antagonist! (Who did about nothing in the non-existent final battle. Yes, you've read right. No final battle. Nothing that even comes close. Where was the goddamn final battle?!) Otherwise, this series is shit. Even if you've read book 1 and liked it, it's not worth reading more. Trust me. You'll regret reading it.
Oh, and also, the German summery on the back of the book spoils pretty much the entire series. Even though I don't think they could have known it when they wrote it. It only becomes clear at the end of Rapture, so I think it was just a misinterpretation - nowwhere in the book stood what Luce was. That's about the most major plot point in the whole series. The sad thing is that they were right - which really doesn't say good things about the predictability of Fallen...
Sometimes I believe only an angel could save me. But I've never believed in angels.
You think about reading this series? Don't. Honestly. Just... Don't.
Until I met HIM...
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