REVIEW: RAPTURE ~ LAUREN KATE

Rapture, the fourth and final installment of Lauren Kate’s Fallen series, concludes the story of Lucinda Price and fallen angel Daniel Grigori, whose love brought a curse on them through which Lucinda is destined to die, lifetime after lifetime at the exact moment of enlightenment when she starts to remember their past, only to be reincarnated and have her and Daniel fall in love and lose each other over and over again.

In Fallen  Luce and Daniel meet for the first time in this lifetime.  After initially trying to drive Luce away, Daniel ultimately gives into his love for her once more and their love story starts once again.  In Torment Luce and Daniel are separated as Daniel works to keep Luce safe from several parties who want her dead, and Luce starts to uncover their history.  In Passion Luce embarks on a journey of self-discovery whereby she travels through announcers to watch several of her former selves fall in love with her angel.  Passion concluded with Lucifer attempting to catch all of the fallen angels in an announcer and take them back to the moments in Heaven before the fall, effectively erasing Luce and Daniel’s romance which spans six odd millennia, and rewriting history.  On a mission to save the world’s history, and their love, Luce and Daniel, along with Arianne, Roland, Annabelle, Cam, Shelby and Miles join forces to stop Lucifer. 

Rapture picks up right where Passion left of.  The angels determine that to stop Lucifer, they have to find him first – which means they have to uncover the exact location of the fall.  In order to do so, the angels first need to identify and find three relics, which when combined will reveal the location of the fall.  The majority of Rapture focuses on the angels’ quest to find these three relics.  Luce also keeps spontaneously remembering bits and pieces of her history, bringing her ever closer to finally understanding why she and Daniel are cursed.

Will Luce be able to unlock the ultimate truth hidden deep in her memory?  Will Luce and Daniel finally end the curse that has haunted them both for thousands of years, or will Lucifer succeed in wiping out their love?

I have to say that the conclusion to the Fallen series left me disappointed.  It ended pretty much as I expected.  No big surprises, no major revelations.  It felt like I was reading something I have read before.  I knew what was coming.  On a positive note Kate ventured to explain the prologue of Passion, and also why Daniel couldn’t remember his future self being present at the Roll Call -  two things I had issues with in Passion.

If you’ve read the first three books by now you know, or at least suspect, that Luce herself is also an angel (I really hope Kate didn’t intend for this to be the big surprise of Rapture, as this was pretty obvious), and that the curse stems from her and Daniel refusing to choose sides during Lucifer’s rebellion in Heaven.  Instead of choosing Heaven or Lucifer, Daniel and Luce chose only each other.  For this they were cast out of Heaven and doomed to love, and lose, each other forever. 

The reason why Luce’s not being baptised was so important to the angels is not only because if she should be killed she will not be reincarnated again but die for good, but also something much more significant.  The curse determined that the only time it can be broken would be when Luce is raised by parents who aren’t religious – not being raised according to a certain faith would enable Luce to decide for herself. 

So Luce discovers that she is also an angel… not just an angel, but the third most powerful Archangel.  Daniel, Cam, Arianne, Annabelle, Gabbe, Roland… they were all archangels, closest to the Throne.  When God left Heaven to create earth and mankind, loneliness drew together… Lucinda and Lucifer!  (May I take a moment to point out I was totally right about Lucifer loving Lucinda and the reason their names are so similar!).  Lucifer was the morning star, and Lucinda the evening light.  Their romance was the first ever romantic love between two entities.  However, Lucifer’s love was suffocating Lucinda – he was taking and taking and taking from her, making her lose her light.  Lucinda soon began to realise that Lucifer’s love was obsessive and poisonous, especially when he started urging her to join forces with him so that they could be more important than God.  Lucinda truly loved the Lord and relished adoring Him – she wanted no part of Lucifer’s plan.  When Daniel comforted a crying Lucinda in the meadow, their love story began.  Instead of harming her, Daniel’s love made Lucinda radiant, her light shining brighter and brighter.  Where Lucifer’s love made her weak, Daniel’s love made her strong – though Lucifer introduced her to love, Daniel showed her what it was supposed to be like.  Angry and proud, Lucifer dragged Lucinda before God and started the rebellion that caused the fall.  Instead of remaining by his side, Lucinda moves to Daniel, and they declare their love for each other, the only allegiance they would pledge, and were cast out of Heaven along with millions of other angels.

Forward to present day.  Lucifer, still bitter over losing the angel he loved to a lesser angel, attempts to catch the fall in an announcer, erase the past 6000 odd years, and take all the angels back to the moments before the fall, giving Lucinda the chance to “choose right” this time.  Only Lucinda can convince him that she would make the same choice again.  Finally God intervenes, and Lucinda and Daniel are brought forward to make their choice once more.  Again, they choose only each other and their love.  They are granted their desire to be together – but at a price.  They will lose their immortality, their memories and the powerful force that always brings them together.  They are to be born again as mere mortals, with only one more lifetime to be together.  They accept without hesitation.  Seventeen years later Lucinda and Daniel fall in love for the first, and last, time.

The conclusion to the series truly saddened me.  The fact that Luce and Daniel’s memories were lost bothered me most.  I expected them to become mortal, but I had hoped they would just continue living, knowing what they are to each other.  But no, they start again as babies.  While I am happy that they managed to find each other in their last lifetime, I am very disappointed that they will never know just how much they truly love each other.

I have to say that I intensely dislike the fact that Lucinda and Lucifer were once in love.  This somehow lessened the power and beauty of Luce and Daniel’s romance for me.  Also, I have a major problem with the part of the plotline which states that Lucifer invented love.  The Bible clearly states that God is love, so as a Christian I did not appreciate this approach.  I know Kate had to explain the curse, but I wish she had found another way.  As with Passion, again I wasn’t comfortable with the way Kate depicted God, but I do feel that she at least attempted to be respectful in her writing.

In a final note, Cam’s story is completely unresolved.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Kate wrote a novel about him later on.  In fact, I hope she does.

I would also like to mention that one thing Lauren Kate got absolutely right, is the covers for the books.  

These are, without a doubt, some of my favourite book covers of all time.  Beautiful. I also like how Luce is finally wearing white on Rapture's cover - enlightenment.

Product information:
Title: Rapture

Author: Lauren Kate

Number of pages: 464

Publisher: Delacorte Books For Young Readers 

Year: 2012

ISBN-10: 0385739184

ISBN-13: 978-0385739184 

In conclusion, please allow me a moment to celebrate