Fallen (Fallen, #1)

by Lauren Kate

When I saw this series on the shelf in the book store I wasn’t too sure if I would be interested in it. Mainly because I had never read any stories with angels as the premise.

The first thought that came to my mind when I started reading was that hardly anything about the main character Luce made me interested in her. The only thing that kept me reading were these ominous ‘shadows’ that she kept seeing, they were the only thing that peaked my interest. And only because I had no idea what they were and I wanted to find out.

The story is based at the Sword and Cross reform school where kids that do/cause something very horrible are sent. Luce has been sent there due to a horrible event that she may have caused but is not sure herself what happened.

At the beginning I felt no connection to Luce herself, or any of the other characters for that matter. I’m pretty sure that mainly had to do with the fact that they were in a reform school and were portrayed as crazy (In the readers’ minds eye at least). For example Arianne, Luce’s first friend there, get’s Luce to cut off all of her hair in the very beginning, only after having talked to her for five minutes; kinda crazy.

I actually did try to get into the story and enjoy it but I stopped trying once I got to the point where I had had enough of Luce’s single fixation on Daniel. From then on I got bored because all Luce ever did was stalk/worry/think/stress about Daniel. Daniel was her every thought. And you know what? Daniel treated her like a piece of crap! Ignored her, avoided her, continually took her out into the forest and then left her standing there by herself, lead her on then ignored her again multiple times. And Luce just continued to fall even harder for him. What. The. Hell.

There was no message in this story. Unless the message was: let the guy you like treat you like crap and walk all over you then he’ll be sure to fall in love with you, because what guy wouldn’t turn away a girl who fawned on every move he made and let him get away with everything and murder? Metaphorically speaking about the murder.

I felt like there was nothing else going on in the story, nothing else to draw me in, nothing else to keep me hooked. There was no other storyline or sub plot. This story is based on Luce and how she feels about the mysterious Daniel. I got bored of this very quickly and found myself really not caring if they hooked up or not. It felt very one dimensional and flat.

Kate treats her readers like idiots. Seriously. The reader guesses the main part of the story from the blurb on the back, before they even start reading the book, but Kate has Luce figure it out three hundred pages later as if it is a huge reveal. Hello. We are not idiots. But apparently Luce is.

This let the story down. But what was I expecting? The blurb its self tells us that this story is only about Luce trying to get Daniel’s affection.

Because of this I found I skimmed half of the book in an attempt to finish it and find out how it ended. But I’m still not quite sure what happened at the end. The ending was so jammed packed with all of this new information that I didn’t want to stop skimming and really start reading to try and wrap my head around it all. So many new elements were introduced at the end that I just got confused, rolled my eyes, and tried to make out what was going on without actually putting any major effort in. Which was impossible.

Half way through the story I felt like all the characters around Luce knew something that she did not. Like every character. Except her best friend Penn who was just as clueless as Luce was. Actually, I knew they did, it was obvious, way too obvious that something was going on and she wasn’t seeing it. This took the enjoyment out of reading it because it felt like Luce was running around in circles while everyone watched, as if she were a pet on a leash tied to a tree trying to break free and run after its master, whom was watching and laughing at it. Luce nearly felt like the butt of a joke that no one cared sharing. Annoying. And not interesting.

Unfortunately the ‘shadows’ that Luce kept seeing didn’t get any more interesting. At first they were mysterious and scary but then they got boring and repetitive.

I like it when the main character doesn’t have to rely on anyone else to get her through the obstacles. When they amaze the other characters. Luce completely relied on Daniel at the end because she had to. She had no idea what was going on yet she pretended she did, blabbed on about things she thought she knew about but really she knew absolutely nothing. Because no one cared enough to let her know. Lauren Kate made Luce ignorant and stupid by decision.

I think the story had potential, but it fell flat. The storyline, characters and premise all fell flat. Maybe because I’m not that interested in angels? Or maybe because the premise didn’t give me anything to be interested in over angels. Either way, I am going to find it hard to read the second book of the series.

It must get better though because there are four books in total for this series. If it doesn’t then what the hell were the publishers thinking?

Oh please let them get better!

You can see why I only rated it one club! I rarely rate one club, but this book wholly deserved no more.

Miss J
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