REVIEW: Fallen | Lauren Kate | Doubleday

Title: Fallen
Author: Lauren Kate
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 9780385618021
Publish date: 17 December 2009
Genre: YA / Romance / Fantasy / Fallen Angels 
Length: 452 pages
Format: Paperback ARC
Reviewer: Sassy Brit
Alternative-Read.com

This is an Amazon Vine Review


The shadows have always followed Luce around ever since she can remember, but after speaking to her parents about it once, they sent her to numerous psychiatrists, certain she must be suffering from a mental illness. This does not bode well for Luce, always having to lie about the shadows, and thinking there is something wrong with her but never quite knowing what. This turns her into an angry teenager always getting into trouble. So much so, she ends up being sent away to a reform school called the Sword and Cross. Although she is not happy about it, and misses her best friend and parents, things soon look up when she comes face to face with Daniel - the moody, secretive, untouchable boy who she swears she has met before. But Luce is hiding a few secrets of her own. Before coming to Sword and Cross she had a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school revoked when she was blamed for the accident that caused the death of her boyfriend, and it so traumatised her it led to the loss of her memory of the incident. Or so she is lead to believe.

Meanwhile, the alluring, yet equally mysterious bad boy, Cam, has set his sights on Luce causing her to feel torn between both him and Daniel. But of course it's Daniel she really wants and feels she has a connection with. So, with her new school friend's help she tries to find out more about him and is shocked at what she learns, not only about Daniel, but herself. The shadows are no figment of her imagination, and she has a past connection with Daniel that changes everything. Throughout her life, all her lives in fact, Daniel has been her protector - her guardian angel. But that's not all, Luce finds herself in the middle of a war, and it's fight or flight time between good and evil. Will the dark, sad truth of her relationship with Daniel ever be revealed? One kiss is all it takes to change everything, but is it for the best?

Oh, what a lovely, Gothic love story, thriller and suspenseful read all rolled into one. The premise of a love that cannot be, may not be a new one, but with a flutter of fallen angels waging a war against each other, the story grows wings and takes on a new life of its own. I could not put it down. However, the ending did seem to lack something by leaving a key question unanswered. Yes, I know there's going to be a sequel and Lauren Kate wants to keep us hooked, and maybe I'm just being too impatient, but it did leave me feeling a little cheated at the end. Despite this, it wasn't enough to destroy my reading experience. I truly did enjoy discovering the secrets of Luce and Daniel's developing romance, and what she had unknowingly walked into that would change her life forevermore.

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