Reviewed by Nicole Lynn on
My Review:
The novel centers around a girl named Luce Price who recently was sent to Sword & Cross boarding school in Savannah Georgia. The boarding school isn’t the New England type that most think of when boarding school pops up in the description. Instead this boarding school is a cross between a prison, mental ward, and school. The story takes the reader through Luce’s days attending the school and the other students she meets–in particular Daniel Grigori. Daniel becomes an obvious love interest, but so does another student–Cam. The novel weaves in some super natural and soon the Fallen angels do arrive into the story line. But i’ll leave you to read to figure out who’s who in this novel!
Onto the critique:
What I loved about Fallen was Kate’s writing. Most novels have good story lines that draw me in but average writing. Kate, however, has written her characters well. Even the secondary characters of the other students are written well. At the end of the novel I felt like I had understood each character’s behavior and quirkiness. I love when a writer can develop their characters not only in plot progression but in just developing a strong sense of the character before plot even begins. Kate did that in Fallen which drew me in to loving this novel even more.
What I also loved was her ability to add in the supernatural. Her setting added to this greatly, but I felt the supernatural additions were not over zealous or unbelievable. Some of it was subtle until there was enough basis to have it all out, guns blaring. I also loved the graveyard setting and the few hints Kate dropped in there about the fallen angel themes around certain characters (*snake”).
Along with the setting I felt that Kate also did well with the love triangle. I felt Luce’s pull to each love interest and although most avid readers could probably predict who she would end up with, I still enjoyed the suspense. The ending as well gave me the desire to move towards picking up the second novel, Torment. The ending was a little surprising, which I love because I’ve gotten good at predicting most endings with YA novels and love being surprised!
Overall I didn’t find any thing really wrong or worth pointing out that was bad. I know with reviews you need negative points, but i’m not really reviewing I’m just telling my experiences with books :) So with that in mind, I hope you have an opportunity to read this. If you are into the YA supernatural (not SciFi) genre, this is a great book to pick up. Although everyone reads at their own pace, I do think this would be a quick read just because the story line and writing is so enticing!
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 8 October, 2011: Reviewed