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



NOW READING: RAPTURE ~ LAUREN KATE

The sky is dark with wings...

Like sand in an hourglass, time is running out for Luce and Daniel. To stop Lucifer from erasing the past they must find the place where the angels fell to earth. Dark forces are after them, and Daniel doesn’t know if he can do this—live only to lose Luce again and again.

Yet together they will face an epic battle that will end with lifeless bodies . . . and angel dust. Great sacrifices are made. Hearts are destroyed. And suddenly Luce knows what must happen.

For she was meant to be with someone other than Daniel. The curse they’ve borne has always and only been about her - and the love she cast aside. The choice she makes now will be the only one that truly matters.  In the fight for Luce, who will win?

The astonishing conclusion to the FALLEN series. Heaven can’t wait any longer ~ Lauren Kate website.

LAUREN KATE: FALLEN IN LOVE

Good news if you're a fan of the Fallen Series! I have previously covered Fallen, Torment and Passion, and with the final installment, Rapture, scheduled for release in June 2012, Lauren Kate has announced a January 2012 release of a new novel, Fallen in love. All we know about the new book at this time is:


Fallen in Love is a riveting tale told through four intertwined love stories featuring the Fallen characters that fans have grown to know and love: Miles, Shelby, Roland, Arriane, and Luce and Daniel,


and that the book will


delve into angel mythology and give readers the much-talked about but never-revealed back stories of the Fallen characters as they intertwine with the epic love story of Luce and Daniel.


Personally, when authors do this kind of thing I smell a money making scheme, and that annoys me, because it's no longer about telling the best story you can possibly tell. I have also been very annoyed with Ms Kate earlier this year when I stumbled upon new releases of Torment, containing "New bonus material scenes". Thousands of loyal fans buy your book the day it comes out, and you thank them by adding bonus scenes months later for the Johnny-Come-Lately's?! Hard core, die hard fans will probably buy the book again just to get their hands on the bonus material, but here is no way I will fall for something like that.


As excited as am I sure many readers are, I can't help but think if Lauren paid more attention to Passion instead of working in a bonus project, maybe the book would have been better. Just a thought.


Happy reading xxx

LAUREN KATE: PASSION

*Teeny tiny spoiler alert*

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

LAUREN KATE: TORMENT

Just like its predecessor, Fallen, I finished reading Torment in three days. I love the story of Daniel and Luce, and all of the mysteries there are yet to discover. As previously mentioned the Fallen series by Lauren Kate is about Lucinda Price, a mortal girl (although I am starting to have my suspicions about Luce’s mortality) who is doomed to fall in love with, and then lose, fallen angel Daniel Grigori lifetime after reincarnated lifetime. This time around, though, things seem to be different and all of the angels are convinced that this lifetime will change Luce and Daniel’s story forever (and not only because Luce has not been baptized in this lifetime, which of course means that if Luce should die this time around, she will not be reincarnated - if she dies, she dies for good).

Although I love the story and the characters, and definitely prefer the new setting and the new characters we are introduced to (I much prefer them to the lot at Sword & Cross), I had the nagging feeling that I was reading Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon again – and as you know New Moon was my least favourite book of the Twilight Saga. The star crossed lovers are separated. Boy is anguished; girl is tormented and close to depression. Enter new bff boy who makes our heroine feel all warm and fuzzy in the absence of her true love, serving only to confuse her already tumultuous emotions even further. New bff boy tries to make our heroine fall in love with him, even knowing she loves another. Seriously, this guy is Jacob Black all over again; annoying the life out of me!

Having said that, I enjoyed tagging along with Luce as she made new discoveries about her life… or lives, I should say. The story is starting to take a very interesting shape, and with every page the Fallen series gets better. Sadly, we see very little of Daniel, thankfully we see even less of Cam, and we have what I would call little cameo appearances by Roland and Arianne, two of my fallen favourites. A new setting, new angels, new mysteries and new discoveries make Torment an interesting read. For a happy ending kind of gal I wasn’t terribly impressed with the ending, though I can’t say I was disappointed either. Uncertainties and suspense filled scenes are, after all, a great way to end these pesky “to-be-continued’s”, and at the very least I’m happy to see Luce finally getting some backbone and owning her life. At the end of the day Torment leaves you just as it should: wanting more.

In my humble opinion the Fallen series is going to be the next big thing, so if you are one of those people who like to be able to say “I loved the book even before it became a cult phenomenon”, then you should definite get your copies of Fallen and Torment ASAP, ‘cause if you ask me, a movie announcement is just around the corner. Isn’t that the best thing about reading, though? You discover all of these awesome stories before so many others :)

The next book in the series, Passion, is scheduled for release mid 2011.

FALLEN ~ LAUREN KATE

It is with great anticipation that I await the release of Torment, the second of four books to be released by Lauren Kate. Torment will hit the shelves at the end of September, and my hands are itching for my copy. I literally cannot wait to see what happens to Luce and Daniel next.

Today I urge you to read Fallen, the first book of the series, if you haven't done so yet.

In a literary world where so many series are being released, devoured and praised, the Fallen series is unique and promises to be intriguing until the end.  Kate writes brilliantly and encorporates a very colourful cast of characters along with Luce and Daniel. Plus, there's a bit of a love triangle going on which, let's face it, we always love.

I finished reading Fallen in three days - It would have been in one if I didn't have to go to work and earn my bread and butter, but you get the picture. It's a book that had me crying in the prologue (!) and took me on an emotional journey with Luce. Throughout the book I could feel everything she was feeling - the sign of a brilliant writer! I couldn't put Fallen down, and I'll bet you won't be able to either!

Fallen
Some Angels are Destined to Fall

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.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story ~ as per Lauren Kate's website.

If you're on Twitter, you can follow Lauren at http://twitter.com/laurenkatebooks. She's fun to follow as she gives regular updates on how her writing in the series is going, and often asks fan feedback.

Happy reading!