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232 of 263 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Fallen & Flawed, April 26, 2010
This review is from: Fallen (Hardcover)
Quick & Dirty: Ultimately this tale isn't captivating and lacks a real villain.
Opening Sentence: Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape.
The Review:
Marketing almost sold me on this book, but the book itself couldn't close the deal. With a beautiful cover, the promise of a tragic love story, a creepy, gothic boarding school setting, and fallen angels, I expected a compelling read. Unfortunately, Fallen is a disappointment.
Fallen's protagonist, Luce, is a suspected arsonist, and claims that she's constantly stalked by malevolent shadows. Her parents, at their breaking point, send her to Sword & Cross, a boarding school. Once at Sword & Cross, Luce battles the typical "new girl" problems and immediately catches the eye of two hot guys at the school. She finds herself drawn to the mysterious Daniel and is determined to find out more about him and his past.
Fallen is a flawed novel and I had to struggle to finish. Fallen was crafted in such a way as to make the story predictable and ultimately doing little to keep the reader engaged. I knew Fallen was a series so I didn't expect the overall story arc to unfold at a breakneck pace, but I did expect something to actually happen. The pacing of the story is slow with little to no action. In my opinion, a lot of the chapters that were written really didn't do much to move the plot forward.
I think the most damning aspect for me is the author's inversion of the Show vs. Tell concept. Meaning, Ms. Kate did more telling than showing me what I needed as a reader. Daniel and Luce are supposed to have this amazing connection and be hopelessly in love, yet none of this is shown to the reader. Ms. Kate didn't establish enough background about Daniel and Luce's relationship to make this a believable or particularly compelling love story. I never established an emotional connection with the characters and their plights simply didn't resonate with me. The dialog was flat and character descriptions were inconsistent. There wasn't enough worldbuilding and as a result the story suffered.
My second gripe concerns the lack of characterization. The difficulty in writing immortal/supernatural characters for a sophisticated audience is that you have to respect their reality. For an immortal character, Daniel certainly lacks imagination, maturity, skill and purpose. His brooding and skulking around didn't make me believe that he was dangerous or a bad boy for that matter. Luce came off as a creepy stalker, pathetic, naïve, weak, and at times really annoying. The narrative voices of the secondary characters aren't particularly unique. With no real character development and growth, it was hard to care about them. I'm not sure if I will invest the time to read the second book in the series, Torment, because Fallen did not grab me.
Overall, Fallen falls prey to clichés. It's all buildup with no climax, and that left me more frustrated than satisfied. Ms. Kate seems to have left key elements of the story for later installments, and a bevy of plot devices weakened the story. With little depth to the characters or plot, I fear some seasoned and savvy readers of the genre will have a hard time falling for Fallen.
Notable Scene:
She looked up into a maelstrom of shadows. A spectrum of shades of gray and deepest black. She should only be able to see as far as the ceiling overhead, but the shadows seemed somehow to extend beyond its limits. Into a strange and hidden sky. They were all tangled up in each other, and yet they were distinct.
FTC Advisory: I purchased a copy of this book. In addition, I don't receive affiliate fees for anything purchased via links from my site.
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95 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terribly disappointing, February 25, 2010
This review is from: Fallen (Hardcover)
Lauren Kate's debut novel, Fallen, has garnered very mixed reviews, so I wanted to check it out for myself. Unfortunately, I fall into the group that disliked the book. Following on the heels of other recent paranormal romances, FALLEN uses a fallen angel theme. After a devastating fire, Luce is pulled out of her high-achieving prep school and deposited within the rusted gates of Sword and Cross reform school in Georgia. Though plagued by visions of lurking shadows and the unexplained death of her classmate, Luce starts making both friends and enemies and drawing the attention (both good and bad) of two guys. Despite his cold behavior, Luce is inexplicably drawn to Daniel, and she slowly finds herself on a path of discovery about her past and her potentially devastating future.
Author Kate appears to be able to write well, as there are some good moments here and there in the novel. However, these moments were outweighed for me by the clumsy dialogue and forced attempts to create a dismal, southern Gothic atmosphere. While the author tried to create a strong sense of place, the descriptions of the South and the reform school were so filled with contradictions that each setting seemed implausible. Editing was also lacking in the book, and these mistakes pulled me out of the story. Further, character development was very limited. Luce came across as mostly inept and uninspiring, even though we're told she's smart, beautiful, and worthy. The romantic connection between the main characters felt superficial at best. Luce's love for Daniel may have been fated, but I never felt why the two loved each other so desperately. The secondary characters of Gabbe, Arriane, and Cam were more interesting, but they seemed like caricatures at most.
The book's story arc was mostly predictable, and the most interesting components, like Luce's constant hallucinations of shadows, were dismissed casually once they were finally mentioned. We're told the two main characters have a damned love, but it was never explained why. Nor was it ever explained why these angels had fallen and why some were now fighting for good and others for bad. All of these things, including Luce's involvement as a catalyst for events to come, were never explained. It seemed obvious that these questions were left unanswered to set up things for the forthcoming sequels (including Torment), but I feel that readers could still anxiously await the next installment while understanding why it's all linked and all so important.
Combined, these concerns made this book a very unsatisfying read for me, but I'm glad that others enjoyed it so much. In the three coming books, I hope that Kate better develops the connection between characters and that she provides more background about Daniel's and Luce's relationship.
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44 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocrity at Its Finest, June 4, 2010
This review is from: Fallen (Hardcover)
The storyline sounded intriguing, the cover was absolutely haunting, and after reading all the glowing reviews of this book, I decided to give it a read. What I hoped to find was a stunning book on the power of eternal love, loss, and maybe some redemption. What I received was a spectacularly mediocre reading experience.
Lucinda "Luce" Price is special. Shadows follow her around, but no one else can see them and no one believes her. People just think she's lost her marbles and she is sent to an unforgiving boarding school, which is not unlike a prison, after the mysterious death of her friend. At Sword & Cross, Luce meets a varied cast of characters, some who appear to want to kill her or annoy her to death and others who seem to truly want to help her. Then we learn they're all angels and there's a huge conspiracy at the center of which is Luce.
I told you the premise is compelling. Where the book faltered, however, was in the telling. Neil Gaiman once said that a good story should have the reader asking "...and then what happened?" when there is a pause in the story. With Fallen, I never asked that question. I continued reading in the hopes that it would get better, but it never did. The story was rote and unadorned. Telling became prominent rather than showing and it slowed the book down considerably.
When the writing faltered, so did the characterization. Any story worth its salt has compelling characters whose actions and personality feel genuine. Luce was rather bland in the beginning, the middle, and the end. In other words, she never developed. Daniel Grigori, to whom Luce had an overwhelming and inexplicable attraction, was an inconsistent stereotypical Byronic male. But he annoyed more than he intrigued. Cam was the quintessential charming nice guy and Arriane was the disfigured girl who picked Luce up when she was down. Of the characters, Arriane and Cam--two supporting characters--came the closest to being genuine, though they too drifted into cliche. Overall, the characters were unskillfully handled puppets on the page.
As far as the plot, which tends to develop out of strong characterization (what is plot if not a character's actions and reactions to each situation?), it fizzled.
This book could have been great; the elements are there, but it is nothing more than commercial supernatural fantasy with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The uninspired prose, lacking character development, and weak plot with far too many unanswered questions in an attempt to push the reader into the next book left much to be desired.
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