Monday, March 29, 2010

Fallen by Lauren Kate - Book Review #11

Monday, March 29, 2010
Fallen
by Lauren Kate

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.

For a very long time I haven't fail to pick a book for myself. For a very long time all books I’ve read I liked. The difference was only in a degree of liking. But once in a while your senses will fail you, leaving you shocked, disgusted and frustrated. And this is precisely how I felt while I was reading Fallen and after I finished. Why did I finish it? I don’t know, I guess I was hoping throughout the book that it will become better. I was telling myself that it should become better, it must and it will, because I’ve read so many rapturous reviews. But unfortunately miracle never happened.

This book… no I can’t call IT neither a book, no a novel… This piece of writing is so wrong and awful on so many levels that I can’t stop wondering how, oh how, for the god’s name, it got published? Was publisher so desperate to print at least anything? In our time, when every woman from age twelve until eighty two are writing a paranormal young adult romance novel, I’m sure that publishers should have a big variety to choose from. Or why publisher was in such a hurry to get this book out on the shelves? Why the manuscript wasn’t written and rewritten, polished and adjusted until it would at least remotely resemble the novel? Why author wasn’t made to work harder or at least just work on the plot, the characters development, style and on the structure? Because Fallen, like almost everything else have a potential. I guess I would never have those questions answered.

Fallen has no structure. There is no The Beginning where the readers should be introduced to the characters and to the scene. The only thing that Lauren Kate does – is bringing up a lot of characters that do not play any role later on in the story. There is no The Middle that should be full of small crisis; no the Middle which should eventually lead to The Climax; no the Middle where the readers should witness a character and story development. Fallen doesn’t have any of it. It is just big nothing – nothing is happening and the story is not moving. We only see the sequence of days main character is living through and meaningful to the story events. The main battle – the beauty and the center of attention of any book is taking place off-scene. And the sense of the battle is completely obscure to me. Also, there is no The End. There is no resolution for The Climax – Fallen didn’t have any. There is no resolution for the loose ends, because, once again, there weren’t any. And at the end the author is only starting to raise questions, building the base for the sequel, leaving us, readers, with no answers at all, with no resolution, however small and insignificant to the story it might be.

The differentiation between show and tell in Fallen is so huge, you can’t wrap your mind around it. For instance, we are told that Luce – the main character – is a smart girl, she has good grades, but in her actions, we can only see stupidity and irrationality.

I can continue ranting about Fallen, full of imperfections, about confidence level of publishers, but I’d rather stop here. I’m most probably will be reading second book in the Fallen series - Torment , because for ones, I’m an optimist and also, I like watching authors developing their writing skills and sense of the story. I really hope to see a lot of improvements in the second book.

P.S. I absolutely adored the cover.

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