“What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours?”
― Lauren Kate, Fallen
Synopsis: 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, Georgia. 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 though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go (really ?). Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her. (P.S This synopsis does not at all describe the book)
Like a lot of people on this week’s TopTen Tuesday I picked up Fallen because of the cover. It’s dark, mysterious, and full of melancholy. It has a girl in a pretty dress, I mean it just screams dark paranormal romance.
However, you would never guess the genre for the first 200 or so pages of the book (not counting the prologue). We are are introduced to Lucinda “Luce” Price who is court-ordered to be sent to Cross & Sword, a reform school, after her involvement with the tragic death of one of her classmates. At the school, she meets a group of misfits; a lovable sidekick, the mean girl and a smoldering love interest. I mean that would make a pretty good contemporary novel, right? Unfortunately this book keeps going.
The plot of the book is interesting however the storytelling is where it began to lose me. Everything that happens in the first 200 pages of the novel is irrelevant in the last few pages of the book. We just have to trudge through the boring “romance” and exposition just to reach the ending.
That said, the paranormal part of the novel is an interesting concept, but it was dragged out and told in a clunky manner. Which is pointless because as the reader if you are half paying attention, or read the tagline on the book, it is really obvious what is going on. . . and yet it drags on forever. Kind of like in New Moon where it takes Bella a bunch of chapters to realize Jake is a shapeshifter.
Between the overly-described love interest, girl who feels she doesn’t deserve super-hot guy, instantly falling in love–I just felt like I’d read it all before. Luce spends the novel falling in love with a guy she barely knows, instead of working through the issues that got her sent to reform school–and I’m not sure how that made me feel about her as a character
The second half of the book is much better than the first half, but the ending did not pay off at all. It seemed like it was slapped together just to make the reader buy the other book. . . which I might do because I hope the second book might redeem the series.
Pros : Unique plot, lovely cover art and a prologue that pulls you in
Cons : The storytelling is messy, cut off endings, and mimics the critical aspects of Twilight.
1/2 of the blogging duo at Books and Sensibility, I have been blogging about and reviewing books since 2011. I read any and every genre, here on the blog I mostly review Fantasy, Adult Fiction, and Young Adult with a focus on audiobooks.