Fallen

Author: Lauren Kate

Pages: 496

Published: December 2009, Delacorte

Genre: Paranormal/Romance

Cover Score: A

Overall Grade: A

Ever since she was a little girl, Lucinda Price has been seeing dark shadows--and after a particularly serious incident, Luce finds herself at Sword & Cross, a rundown reform school. There, Luce finds her fair share of crazy people, good friends, and boy trouble. There's Cam, who is charming, kind, and interested. And then there's Daniel, who goes out of his way to be unfriendly to Luce. Still, she is drawn to him--but he has a dark secret that Luce is dying to find out. The students at Sword & Cross had better watch out, because an ancient battle is coming...

My thoughts: Fallen is deeply, beautifully written story: it's fast paced, intense, dark, romantic, scary, fascinating, enchanting, and simply unlike any other paranormal I've ever read. I was sucked in by it--Ms. Kate's writing is beautiful, detailed, and addictive, probably the reason behind her success.

I could not put Fallen down. I ate up Luce's world at Sword & Cross, and I could picture everything going on in the book. Luce was a great protagonist who had a clear voice--I could really get into her head. I felt like the two love interests (Daniel and Cam) were all right. I just couldn't picture them, and they were underdeveloped compared to Luce and her other friends. I just didn't get her fascination with Daniel. I felt like I needed more information on him! The romance aspect didn't gobble up the whole book. It was an important aspect, yes, but the mystery and other events gave the book interesting twists and turns that led to a surprising conclusion.

Ms. Kate broke away from the norm of vampires and werewolves and put out a fantastic YA debut that kept me hooked until the satisfying ending. She clearly did her research and worked hard to make all of the information on angels, religion, etc make sense and relate to the novel. I definitely want more--I can't wait to dig into the second book, Torment! (Released September 28 by Delacorte)