This is Your Brain on Books: Fallen

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Published: December 8, 2009 by Delacorte Press

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

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. 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.

So this book is one that people seem very divided over, they either hate it or love it. It was recommended to me by a friend who loved it (but then again, she's Team Gale so I'm not so sure about her judgement...) so I figured I'd read it. It sucked me in pretty quickly, which surprised me because to me everything about it screamed melodramatic love story and I'm not exactly on the hunt for books that are similar to Twilight.

Reasons I love this book:

Sword and Cross- I usually don't enjoy boarding school settings, but this one I liked. It was a nice twist having a rundown school by a graveyard instead of another fancy rich kid school like I typically see in other YA books (maybe I'm just reading the wrong books?)
Daniel- he's kinda sexy and mysterious, plus he's just the right amount protective of Luce where it's sweet and not overbearing
plot- yes, this book is about fallen angels (I'm guessing you figured that out from the title) but that's not all it's about. From the first page you know that it's about love throughout time and reincarnation, and watching Luce figure out what was going on kept me reading. (If you like books with love stories about reincarnation I highly recommend The Pace by Shelena Shorts!)
Penn- she's the most believable/normal character and even though Luce doesn't always value her friendship it was refreshing to read their interactions (p.s. what Penn goes through is no bueno)

Huh, what?:

big revelation- this seriously missed the mark for me. You know, the important part when the heroine finally finds out what's going on? Well, I was completely sucked into this book until I hit that part. All the sudden it's like everyone Luce has ever spoken to is dropping in revealing that they're part of what's going on. It's like the author was almost done and then decided she could make this into a series so she threw all the characters she liked into the mix. One was hinted at in the book and another one is a surprise that makes sense...but the others are just...there going "oh by the way we're important to the series too".
Cam- I just think he's bad news every time he shows up but Luce is a sucker and I'm sick of heroines who blindly follow anything with testosterone. Who goes off alone with mysterious dudes without so much as telling a friend where they're going?

Is this the end?:

Nope; the sequel, Torment has been out for awhile and is getting a paperback release mid-June. The 3rd book, Passion, is coming out the same day as that paperback, June 14. (I hate the Passion cover by the way)

Favorite quotes:

She tore past the rows of plain headstones. At one point they must have been upright, but now they were so old that most of them tipped over to one side or the other, giving the whole place the look of a set of morbid dominoes. - Luce pg. 86
And Luce brought up the rear, considering what might happen if she were to give her parents her own personal tour of the cemetery. Here's where I served my first detention... And here's where a falling marble angel nearly decapitated me... And here's where a reform school boy you'd never approve of took me on the strangest picnic of my life. - pg. 275