Passion: Book 3 of the Fallen Series (Fallen, #3)

by Lauren Kate

The third book in the incredible FALLEN series.

Before Luce and Daniel met at Sword & Cross, before they fought the Immortals, they had already lived many lives. And so Luce, desperate to unlock the curse that condemns their love, must revisit her past incarnations in order to understand her fate. Each century, each life, holds a different clue.

But Daniel is chasing her throughout the centuries before she has a chance to rewrite history.

How many deaths can one true love endure?

And can Luce and Daniel unlock their past in order to change their future?

• ISBN10: 0552561797
• ISBN13: 9780552561792
• Publish Date: 26 April 2012 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
• Imprint: Corgi Childrens
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

1,5 stars

I was hoping for a prequel/sequel with more information about Luce's and Daniel's relationship, because I wanted to believe in it, but I'm disappointed.

I can't get behind this series, because I can't get behind the main focus of it, the romance. I can't get behind the romance because aside from their past lives, there is no foundation for Luce's and Daniel's relationship. The basis of their relationship is lust, because when Luce and Daniel describe what they like about each other and miss about each other, they always describe each other's physical appearance and nothing else. I thought that a glimpse into Luce's and Daniel's past would provide some reason as to why their romance is described as legendary, but their past lives show what we already know. Luce's and Daniel's relationship has always lacked depth and Passion didn't change my views. I don't see what makes their romance epic. 

Luce's past lives might not be entirely historically accurate, but they are interesting. Luce's past lives have so much more personality than present-day Luce. Present-day Luce is a cardboard cutout in comparison. I wonder what drained out all her personality? Daniel? Because present-day Luce's life revolves around nothing else aside from him and I barely know anything else about her. It's great that Luce has decided to figure things out and takes action, but the way she goes about doing it is terrible.  

Luce is also the most trusting, gullible and frustrating protagonist I have ever read about. She goes into an announcer portal without even knowing anything about announcer travel or the rules related to it, cause a bunch of problems that could have easily been averted, is extremely selfish and I have no idea how she's still alive. She's made to seem like a likable character, but she just isn't. 

It's also funny that the only voice of reason is a gargoyle, Bill, who resembles an animated sidekick. Bill is a caricature but he can be entertaining at times. This is a reread so I knew that Bill is Lucifer, which could also be why I found the personality transition odd.

The plot is repetitive. Luce uses the announcer portal to time travel, encounters a past life, figures a few things out, Daniel tries to follow Luce and is always a step behind and repeat. Passion might have felt less repetitive if present day events were woven into the past lives. Passion is more like a prequel and new information is only revealed at the end. The payoff of the reveal at the end wasn't enough for me to trudge through this whole book, but the fact that I did probably says more than my empty words. 

I expected Passion to change my opinion of present-day Luce and Daniel and make me feel more positive towards them, but it just reaffirmed how much I don't like them.  

[nightingalereads]

2.5 stars

[Vicki]

3.5 stars

[Sam@WLABB]

Loved what LKate did here!

Luce is tired of being in the dark about the Curse, so she takes it upon herself to learn more about her lives with Daniel. She travels through time via Announcers to gather information regarding Daniel's love for her, her love for Daniel and tries to find some answers as to why she keeps going down in flames.

The time traveling was so much fun to read about. We get to glimpse Luce and Daniel's lives through the ages. So many different times. locations and interesting backstories to explore. Loved it. The story was broken down by location and date and for most of the chapters you would read about the location from Luce's POV and in the next chapter, we would learn about the same location from Daniel's POV, which was because he was hot on her heels trying to find her.

We get a lot of answers. We learn what caused the rift in Cam and Daniel's friendship, we get a front row seat for the event which set this all in motion -- the Fall, we find out why Luce did not die in this lifetime.

The book primarily centers around Luce and Daniel, but in the end, all the gang reunites for the greater good.

[Angie]

Passion is the ultimate filler book. Absolutely no plot progression happens for the first 400 or so pages, and then, BOOM, new plot point and cliffhanger ending! I didn't wholly dislike it, since I love me some time travel and visiting far off places, but it was all extremely repetitive and melodramatic. Luce is beginning her journey through space and time to learn about her past lives and relationship with Daniel. She's also hoping to find out where the curse changed and how she can break it. It's also pretty important that she doesn't screw anything up, therefore rendering herself nonexistent in the future, or some other catastrophe. Daniel is also making his way backward through time to find her before she breaks anything, but he's also got to be mindful of his actions in the past.

I did like the way time travel worked in Passion. It's definitely less Science Fiction and more divine intervention, but it works for this series. Basically, stepping through the shadows doesn't take Luce to a random point in her history. The travel works on a kind of need to know basis, so wherever Luce needs to be to learn a lesson, is where she winds up. It was interesting to see all of the different times and places, and I liked how the further back we went, the less Luce looked like herself. It would have been pretty strange if she looked like her modern Caucasian self during the Shang Dynasty! Daniel also looked different, but I'm sure that's due to being an angel rather than human evolution.

Aside from the inner workings of the time-space continuum, I was kind of bored with Passion after about three past lives. It was the same thing over and over again. Luce would step into some unknown place and time, be faced with some problem, improvise and end up where her past self is, run into Daniel, watch past Daniel and past Luce kiss, past Luce dies in a fireball from hell, and then goes to the next place/time. Meanwhile, Daniel is always one step behind her and can't seem to catch up. Or they just miss each other by moments. There was some variation added as Luce went further back, but not enough that it felt new and different from what I had already read.

Passion also introduces us to Bill, a little gargoyle who serves as a tour guide through time for Luce. I found his presence extremely comical and couldn't take him seriously at all. My mind immediately thought of Space Jam, because it was kind of like a cartoon character flitting around Luce all of the time. He was helpful in getting her dressed period appropriate, but I just had this mental picture of a cartoon cloud of dust appearing around her as Bill quickly does stuff to change her appearance. It was very distracting.

Passion ends on a cliffhanger. Finally in the last few pages, we see where the curse started, although we never see when Luce and Daniel met, which I would have liked to. Everything goes all the way back to the Fall. Things are learned and evil plans are revealed, and everyone goes back to the present where there's a gaping plot hole! Time doesn't pass the same when you're time traveling, so even though Luce was gone for quite some time, only hours had passed in the present. Well, the plot twist involves the Fall, which was said to last nine days. Now in the future/present, they say they have nine days to figure out how to stop the evil plan before the Fall is complete. Um, no. They'd have a couple of hours! I'm sure Luce was gone for about that time or a little less, but either way, nine days in the time travelly world does not equal nine days in real time.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[celinenyx]

Reading the Fallen series has always been like walking on thin ice for me. As long as you're treading very carefully, everything is fine. Passion is the book that was just slightly too heavy for the support of the ice, and it falls through, dumping me in the freezing water.

Luce is jumping through the Announcers through history to find something she's looking for. She doesn't know yet what exactly that is, only that she needs to find her past selves. All of her friends and Daniel try to follow her, and find her before she changes something fundamental.

I did like the idea of this book. I'm a secret fan of historical settings, and I was looking forward to meeting a Regency Luce, and a pre-historical Luce, etcetera. The problem is, that was the only thing I ended up liking in this book. Luce breezes through history, and I enjoyed watching her being a completely different person in other time periods.

The rest of this book wasn't that entertaining though. Passion lends from countless clichés. The snarky travelling companion. Daniel chasing Luce but never quite catching her. But the worst thing I read in this book was the awful characterisation of Satan. With a character like Satan, you need him to be the ultimate of evil. He should be cruel but intelligent. Someone that makes you shudder, that you can be afraid of.

Well, none of that. Ms Kate's Satan acts like a five-year-old. You know, one that throws a tantrum if he doesn't get what he wants. But the worst cliché that an author shouldn't even want to touch with a very long stick, is one that Ms Kate embraces. She lets Satan spill all of his evil plans. Just like that. Here they are, puny human. My ego is so large I don't have to be sneaky in taking over the world. I will tell you just now how I'm planning to win from heaven so you can try to stop me.

Ugh.

I might have been able to deal with the awful clichés if there was some emotion to brighten up this story. But Luce is just jumping through time, looking for some kind of love. It feels like she's running around like a headless chicken. There is no reason behind it, and in the end I still don't get exactly what she was searching for. All of her emotions felt forced, and I couldn't relate to them at all. In the meantime Daniel is just flying around, being emo. Thinking about killing himself.

Passion really wasn't a passionate book at all. If it had more of it, I might have liked it. Just like the cover, the inside of Passion is mediocre at best. I will read the last book in this series, Rapture, but my expectations of it have been exponentially lowered.

[jeannamichel]

Daniel and Luce have been star-crossed lovers since almost the beginning of time. Ever since the Fall, Daniel has been pining over Luce. The present-Luce needs to discover how the thread of their love and curse entwine together. She goes on a quest, traveling through time, experiencing a number of her previous lives with Daniel. She discovers not only his strong love for her, but she finds out more about herself than she could have ever guessed. But is this enough to save the couple from their destiny that has been decided so long ago?

I love this series. It is filled with action that never lets me catch a breath. I couldn’t put it down. Passion leaves the reader breathless and amazed, feeling the love of these two characters that we have been following since Fallen.

Time travel is fantastic and I loved how Kate put her own twist on how Luce went back in time through the Announcers. However, it was a bit confusing having to get used to the fact that each new chapter is a new place and may be a new view, whether the reader is seeing life through Luce or Daniel’s view. Still, time traveling was a lot fun. I felt like I had been all over the world in just a few hours by reading this novel. Every new place was like a new discovery for Luce and it was amazing how it transported you to a new era every chapter.

There were not many new characters, but as Luce traveled, she met different versions herself and Daniel that kept the plot moving. However, there was a Bill, a new character that Luce finds in an Announcer. He was her tour guide that helped her on this journey, but it wasn’t too surprising when a new twist unfolds at the end with him. Every new version of the main characters was so interesting to take in. In England, Lucinda was a brat and Daniel was an artist. In France, Luce was a princess and Daniel was a stable boy. In Italy, Luce met Daniel, a wounded soldier, in the hospital while she was working as a nurse. Some of the storylines in the different Announcers were a bit cliché. France seemed a bit like The Luxe. Italy reminded me a lot of Farewell to Arms. However, I loved the raw passion of the characters and no matter how cliché the story gets, I will always come back for more because the main story of Luce and Daniel that had started in Fallen just keeps revealing new obstacles to overcome as the series progresses.

Lauren Kate always knows how to tell it well. I know this series is optioned for film, and I can’t help but notice that this whole series would translate so well to film. It would translate so well because Kate is a genius with her descriptions, tone, and plot.

Everyone knows how I hate cliffhangers. This series is definitely not a stranger to cliffhangers and I should have anticipated something like this at the end. It seemed like a trick because when Daniel was in her arms again, I hoped that they would be together forever but then BAM! Nothing ever goes as I think it is going to go.

Passion has definitely put a fresh spin on things and I can’t even figure out what is going to happen next. It was fantastic and I cannot wait until Rapture releases.

[Kim Deister]

The third book in the Fallen series, Passion was very different than the first two books. Unlike those, this book didn't tell a single story. Instead, it followed Luce throughout many of the stories of her lifetimes, travelling ever farther back in order to learn the truth about herself, about Daniel, and about their love. It was an interesting technique to fill in the missing pieces that the previous books left missing. The first two books left vague the back stories of Daniel and the angels and this book went a long way to answering those questions. It also answered much about Luce and her history, throughout time.

I was worried that the time travelling retelling of Luce's story would get muddied or boring, but it really didn't. Each jump in time was almost a mini-story in itself, with each Luce being a completely different kind of person. It was an interesting twist on reincarnation themes. My only criticism was that it was so different in style from the first two that it almost felt as if it was a spin-off, rather than a main part of the series. I enjoyed it, and it answered many of the questions I had about Luce and Daniel, but it just had a very different feel to it. Not bad, just different. Next up is Fallen in Love: A Fallen Novel in Stories, a collection of 4 stories set in the Middle Ages centered around other characters in the series. It will be out January 24, 2012. The final book in the series, Rapture, will be out June 12, 2012.

[neddieb]

Wow! I was very disappointed with this book. The time traveling that Luce was engaged in explained nothing new and nothing interesting. And her time traveling guide "Bill" continuously stated throughout her travels that she will learn a lot from visiting her past lives. (I'm still trying to figure out what she has learned, other than the obvious, the love Daniel and Luce share). We all know that Daniel loves her very much. Basically, nothing was truly learned through her time traveling than from we already know, Daniel's undying love for Luce and her burning up for it. The best part of the book was the last two chapters. You learn more in the last two chapters of the book than from what I believe should have been learned during Luce's time travels.

[Jo]

When I received Passion for review, I was so excited to read it! Finally, the third book! Now I could find out what happened after Lue stepped through the Announcer, and what would happen between her and Daniel! Though I was slightly worried; would Passion live up to the epicness that is Fallen and Torment? Too right it would!

Following Luce as she visited her past lives was just so awesome! seeing all the different people she was, all the personalities, was just genius. We get to witness the good, the bad and the ugly of what it means to be involved in the curse, exactly what the curse does, and it's just so cool! Kate obviously did a whole lot of research for this novel, because there is just so much detail about the time period of each life - the way people spoke, how they dresse the culture, and the "history lessons" provided by Bill - one of the Scale, a kind of Announcer tour guide, Luce meets on her time-travels. Teh things Luce learns and discovers, and the things she realises she already knew as she sees each past incarnation of herself and the Daniel of the time is just beautiful! Seriously, it's so moving and touching, and just truely beautiful!

What's also great is that we get to see Daniel's side of things too as he tries to follow and catch up with Luce as she jumps through time. How much he cares for her and how much he'ssuffered over the centuries just pours out of the pages, you can just feel it. And it's through him that we realise just how dangerous it is for Luce to jump through her past lives - changing things could be disastrous, to both their lives. Either way though, it's Daniel, and I love him, so I was always going to enjoiy being in his head.

My god, the ending! It's not quite as big a cliffhanger as the previous two, but with the immense and mind blowing events that leas up to it, a massive "what happens immediately next?" inducing cliffhanger ending isn't necessary. Because the next ook is going to be huge. No, colossal! When you think about the events that lead up to the end of Passion, and with what Luce and Daniel will have to face in the next book? There is no doubt in my mind that it's going to be more awe-inspiring than anyone could possibly imagine.

A fair few of out questions are answered in this book, but I do believe there are still some left to answer. I still think there is more importance to Luce than we're told in Passion, from the behaviour of some of the other characters in previous books, and at some points on Passin. But it's nice to have that "Oh!" moment when you finally start to understand things.

If I was to criticise at all, I would have to say I would have liked Luce's time in her past lives to have been longer. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Daneile and the various Lucinda incarnations together. However, if that was the case, Passion would have been incredibly long - it's already over 400 pages, so I can understand for the length and for the actual plot/Luce's purpose why the vists weren't as long as I would have liked.

I have asid before that no-one writes love like Kate does - not as beautifully, nor as breath taking - and that's still the case in Passion. There were moments where I could have just died over how beautiful amazing and real it all was, but because of the amount of page time spent in each past life, and because present day Luce and Daniel don't spend an awful amount of time together, these moments don't last very long It was a shame, but it was still absolutely beautiful, and despire it being fiction, it gives me hope.

Passion is a fantastic book! It's absolutely amazing and such a page turner! All Fallen fans should read it immediately. You do not want to miss out on this beilliant third installment. Now, wher did I leave Fallen and Torment? I believe I need to start reading this series all over again.

From Once Upon a Bookcase - YA book blog.