In great anticipation I counted the months for the third installment of Lauren Kate's Fallen series to hit the shelves. As you might remember from my post on Torment, the previous book ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger where Luce practically dives into her past lives (thousands of years of reincarnations of herself). Passion follows Luce as she gets a front row seat to her and Daniel's love through the ages. Sounds exciting, right? Yeah, well the problem is... it wasn't, really. With thousands of years to play with I think Lauren could have given us glimpses of amazing past events! The possibilities are endless! Instead, we see Luce as a Mayan girl becoming a blood sacrifice, an islander sipping coconut juice and giving Daniel tattoos, a spoilt, rich, aristocratic snob... I just think these past lives could have been more interesting. Well, at least we got to see a Shakespeare play! In my favourite reincarnation of Luce she is an actress performing Henry the 8th in the Globe theatre! I loved the cameo by William Shakespeare, and how it turns out Luce is the one responsible for the Globe theatre burning to the ground. More of these kinds of real events worked into Luce's past lives would have been much more interesting.
Having said that, I think all of those glimpses of Luce and Daniel's love in different stages are necessary to understand how deep and how complicated their love is. The problem is just this book is not nearly as gripping as the previous two. Here's hoping the next one will make up for it.
Sadly I have several problems with this book. Firstly, I found the prologue to be unnecessary and confusing. I still don't know what the point of it is, and to me those were wasted pages. None of those characters came up later in the book (unless the booming voice was supposed to be Satan, in which case I didn't get it), so if that was an integral part of the story, I think Lauren should have saved it for the next book, where it would actually make sense.
Then, I get that Luce is reincarnated lifetime after lifetime, so I understand how she once ended up Mayan, once Chinese etc, etc, but how does Daniel change? It is never explained how he changes... mostly he always looks the same, but then suddenly he's Egyptian. I get that he's an Angel and he can probably do what he wants, but I hate when things like that are written in and the reader is just expected to believe it without an explanation. If you want to make drastic changes like that, you need to have a method.
My biggest problem with the book, though, is the final chapter which features a scene in Heaven. I won't say too much here so I don't spoil the ending for anyone who decides they want to read the book, but there are some things I believe people should be careful to write about. Anytime I read something featuring God and it makes me uncomfortable, kind of that I-don't-think-this-is-right-feeling, I have a problem with it. Lauren wasn't blasphemous in her writing, it's just that I don't like the way she described the scene in Heaven, if that makes sense. Again, I hope that she makes up for it in the next book.
Also, when Daniel visits his past lives, he always remember seeing his future self during that past life... except for the scene where he cleaves with his old self, and the final scene at The Fall. Throughout the books he is wondering what can be done to break the cycle, yet he can't remember that he took care of that at the very beginning. Maybe I'm making too much of this, but writers need to be consistent. If current Daniel remembers seeing himself as future Daniel when he was past Daniel, surely it must be true every single time?! He can't conveniently only remember seeing future Daniel when the story warrants it. Consistency is key!
In my previous post I also expressed my doubts about Luce's mortality. I have always thought that Luce is also an Angel, she just doesn't know it, and even though it wasn't explicitly stated in this book, I think my suspicions have been confirmed. A discovery to look forward to. Then something I found very interesting, is how Satan seems to feel about Luce. That combined with with the fact that Daniel came across jealous that Luce had spent time with Satan (even though he tricked her and she didn't realise who he was), makes me wonder if Lucifer might have loved Luce in Heaven? That's another thing, their names; Lucinda and Lucifer. Significant? Maybe. Then again, maybe I'm just grabbing at straws; we'll have to wait and see.
Now, what I loved about the book. Other than Fallen and Torment, Passion focuses solely on Luce and Daniel. We see a little bit of the others, but mainly we see Luce and Daniel. Finally. For what is down at the core a love story, Luce and Daniel don't spend much time together in the course of the three books. Annoying to me, but maybe this works for other people. At least in this book the other characters don't constantly get in the way of Luce and Daniel's relationship. Also, Luce finally realises that what she and Daniel have is real, and stops questioning it. And then there's Cam. Now, you know I'm not the world's biggest Cam fan, but I find there is hope for him yet. I'm looking forward to see what the next chapter will bring.
Rapture, the next and final installment in the series is expected to be released approximately March 2012. Oh, and FYI, my 10 January prediction was spot on! The Fallen series is being turned into movies.
This post would not be complete without a big thank you to Erika, who sent me a copy of the book all the way from England when it wasn't available in South Africa yet! I love you my friend, you're the best! xxx
Having said that, I think all of those glimpses of Luce and Daniel's love in different stages are necessary to understand how deep and how complicated their love is. The problem is just this book is not nearly as gripping as the previous two. Here's hoping the next one will make up for it.
Sadly I have several problems with this book. Firstly, I found the prologue to be unnecessary and confusing. I still don't know what the point of it is, and to me those were wasted pages. None of those characters came up later in the book (unless the booming voice was supposed to be Satan, in which case I didn't get it), so if that was an integral part of the story, I think Lauren should have saved it for the next book, where it would actually make sense.
Then, I get that Luce is reincarnated lifetime after lifetime, so I understand how she once ended up Mayan, once Chinese etc, etc, but how does Daniel change? It is never explained how he changes... mostly he always looks the same, but then suddenly he's Egyptian. I get that he's an Angel and he can probably do what he wants, but I hate when things like that are written in and the reader is just expected to believe it without an explanation. If you want to make drastic changes like that, you need to have a method.
My biggest problem with the book, though, is the final chapter which features a scene in Heaven. I won't say too much here so I don't spoil the ending for anyone who decides they want to read the book, but there are some things I believe people should be careful to write about. Anytime I read something featuring God and it makes me uncomfortable, kind of that I-don't-think-this-is-right-feeling, I have a problem with it. Lauren wasn't blasphemous in her writing, it's just that I don't like the way she described the scene in Heaven, if that makes sense. Again, I hope that she makes up for it in the next book.
Also, when Daniel visits his past lives, he always remember seeing his future self during that past life... except for the scene where he cleaves with his old self, and the final scene at The Fall. Throughout the books he is wondering what can be done to break the cycle, yet he can't remember that he took care of that at the very beginning. Maybe I'm making too much of this, but writers need to be consistent. If current Daniel remembers seeing himself as future Daniel when he was past Daniel, surely it must be true every single time?! He can't conveniently only remember seeing future Daniel when the story warrants it. Consistency is key!
In my previous post I also expressed my doubts about Luce's mortality. I have always thought that Luce is also an Angel, she just doesn't know it, and even though it wasn't explicitly stated in this book, I think my suspicions have been confirmed. A discovery to look forward to. Then something I found very interesting, is how Satan seems to feel about Luce. That combined with with the fact that Daniel came across jealous that Luce had spent time with Satan (even though he tricked her and she didn't realise who he was), makes me wonder if Lucifer might have loved Luce in Heaven? That's another thing, their names; Lucinda and Lucifer. Significant? Maybe. Then again, maybe I'm just grabbing at straws; we'll have to wait and see.
Now, what I loved about the book. Other than Fallen and Torment, Passion focuses solely on Luce and Daniel. We see a little bit of the others, but mainly we see Luce and Daniel. Finally. For what is down at the core a love story, Luce and Daniel don't spend much time together in the course of the three books. Annoying to me, but maybe this works for other people. At least in this book the other characters don't constantly get in the way of Luce and Daniel's relationship. Also, Luce finally realises that what she and Daniel have is real, and stops questioning it. And then there's Cam. Now, you know I'm not the world's biggest Cam fan, but I find there is hope for him yet. I'm looking forward to see what the next chapter will bring.
Rapture, the next and final installment in the series is expected to be released approximately March 2012. Oh, and FYI, my 10 January prediction was spot on! The Fallen series is being turned into movies.
This post would not be complete without a big thank you to Erika, who sent me a copy of the book all the way from England when it wasn't available in South Africa yet! I love you my friend, you're the best! xxx
I do think Lauren Kate planned Passion out as well as she could have, and as evidenced it doesn't feel like this book flows very well. I hope that the last book manages to salvage this and pull everything together.
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