Fallen
Fallen by Lauren Kate is yet another book in the "please let my book be the next Twilight" oeuvre.
Guys, before we proceed, let me make one thing clear. There is no point in being the next Harry Potter or the next Twilight or the next Pinky Chickenpickles and the Super-Hot Zombies of the Magic Sword. The one thing that I can say for Twilight is that it was the only YA book at the time that wasn't trying to be freaking Harry Potter. If you want to write an insanely successful book that will earn you a kazillion dollars, then you have to find something new to write that is not Barry Slotter and the Magician's Mango or Shortly After Brunch-ish. Mmmmkay?
Moving on, Fallen has something that Twilight does not have and that something is a plot. It's unfortunate that the stupid Twilight-esque romance has to be stuffed in there to pretty much kill what would have otherwise been a good story.
Lucinda, also known as Luce, also known as Mary Sucinda but only to me, has been seeing weird shadow things for most of her life. Now she's being sent to the creepiest ever reform school after narrowly escaping a mysterious fire that killed her sort of boyfriend. All the kids are bad seeds and they all want to be her friend rather than kicking her ass but oh hey, who cares cause there's a hot guy.
No, seriously. This girl is bring haunted by evil shadows that can apparently cause fatal fires that could potentially kill her and all she cares about is learning more about Daniel Angelpants Cullenclone because that's what matters to her. Even when presented with hints of occult forces out to kick her ass, all she cares about is Mr. Hotty McNotavampire. While friends and bystanders are getting picked off, she still does not farking care. Well, maybe she sort of cares a little but not all that much because there are hotties to worry about.
Twilight was boring as hell. Hush, Hush was both boring and offensive. This book is actually interesting at first. The reform school is kinda scary and you really don't know which characters can be trusted. In fact, if the romance hadn't eaten the rest of the plot, the book would have been good. Unfortunately, the author apparently doesn't know why I should care about this romance, nor does she know why any of the other characters care. It's a mystery that cannot be revealed. It's as if Harry Potter started out with Harry being the boy who lived but we won't tell you what he lived through or why it's important because... well, we won't tell you that either. So, yeah. I don't know why I need to care, so I don't care.
Lucinda begins as a reasonably bearable character. I don't hate her. She has a bad case of adoraklutz but she does seem to appreciate having friends and makes an effort to be pleasant to people. Her closest friends are people she actually enjoys spending time with and she is pretty nice to them. It's only later in the book when she starts deciding that the best way to break up with the bad guy is by going off all alone with him. Why does she do this? Because the plot needs her to. The hero rescues her and then she goes and does the exact same stupid thing again. So the hero can save her again. Why? The plot needs her to. Apparently, ditching a scary creeper is not enough of a rejection. It is vitally important that you go off with him to a secluded place where no one knows where you are or can hear you screaming in order to tell him that you don't want to spend time with him. WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. THIS. GIRL????????
The hero, Daniel SexyMagicTrousers sort of has an excuse for blowing hot and cold. The premise of a doomed romance where the heroine constantly seeks out the guy no matter how hard he tries to avoid her is kinda cool. In fact, if someone had explained why everyone else seems to give a crap about this romance, I might actually care. Okay, you're doomed. I get it. This time is breaking the cycle. Right with you. And all the angels think this is important and worth fighting over because... whoops can't tell you because, for unspecified reasons, it would be bad. You might even, like die and stuff. Okay, WHY?????? Why does she die? What did she do? Why does this matter? If you don't tell me then the climax of your story loses all its tension because for all I know, killing our heroine would break the cycle and solve all our apocalyptic problems. Why can't we just kill her? They say that this time she can be permanent killed right? So, kill her and save the world already. Sheesh. If she had any consideration for others, she'd just off her own damn self. Hey, being less annoying than Bella Swan isn't the same as actually being likable. Kill her already.
Nope, killing her would be bad, because... nope, can't tell you.
Seriously, if you ask me, the author doesn't know. She didn't think it out. Maybe by the fourth book (Twilight had four books, so now we all have to have four books in a series) she'll think something up. Or not.
On the plus side, unlike in both Twilight and Hush, Hush, our heroine isn't passed out during the big fight scene. For some reason, she still can't understand what's happening well enough to actually tell the reader what's going but at least she's conscious. She's also tied up on an altar and waiting for one of the villains to kill her. How did this happen? Well, the villain has a knife and is threatening to stab her if she doesn't let herself be tied to the altar so the villain can stab her. Now why the villain didn't just, you know, stab her, I really don't know. I would have just stabbed her. I probably wouldn't even have gone to the trouble of revealing myself as the bad guy. I'd just have stabbed her ass and then, maybe I'd have mentioned it when she was dying. Or not. It probably would be a pretty awkward conversation, "Yep, in case you're wondering, I just killed you because I'm evil and stuff. I just thought you'd want to know, maybe. Hey, are you even still conscious? Dammit, I guess I should have monologued sooner."
I loved the first three Harry Potter books because they were brilliantly paced. You learn everything you need to know to understand what is happening and why it's important. At the end of the book, you feel satisfied that everything that needed explaining has been explained, but at the same time you want to know more about Harry's world and what happens next. You feel like there's more cool stuff to learn about, but you don't feel like you've been left hanging or that the author is avoiding certain details because she hasn't quite worked them out yet.
Harry Potter's world is fantastic, but it also follows it's own logic. When things happen that fall outside that norms for Harry's world (the flying car would be an example) people take notice and there are consequences. In the world of Fallen, reform school kids are watched by cameras except when it isn't convenient for them and then they can sabotage them without being caught. They can't smuggle contraband into the school, unless they feel like it and then they can. These kids are apparently doing magic right and left, because none of this stuff has any rational explanation, yet no one ever questions any of it. It doesn't leave you wondering if something might be up with this reform school, it leaves you asking how stupid the heroine has to be to not find it 100% obvious that something is up from the very first chapter.
Of course, maybe nothing is surprising in a world where a girl in reform school can cut all her hair short and no one stops to ask what sharp implement she used to accomplish this and where exactly is the implement? Rules? Pffft. The only rules are ones that advance the plot. Anything that sounds cool is totally fine. I'm surprised that they didn't work in a bag of holding.
And one more thing, I have to bitch about the church turned pool because ummm... okay. Look, it sounds cool. In a book where everything else made sense, you might even be able to go for it. Some insane benefactor made them do it. It was a loophole in the laws regarding historical landmarks. Only, there's no payoff to this thing. No one is getting ritually drowned in the pool. No one is accidentally baptized in the pool. The swimming pool isn't sacred or anything. By the end of the book, the characters have left the reform school which means that this can't be a build up to a payoff later on, because there's no good reason to go back to this particular place. Pretty much, the pool is a metaphor for the entire book. It's a great setup that is completely wasted.
Guys, before we proceed, let me make one thing clear. There is no point in being the next Harry Potter or the next Twilight or the next Pinky Chickenpickles and the Super-Hot Zombies of the Magic Sword. The one thing that I can say for Twilight is that it was the only YA book at the time that wasn't trying to be freaking Harry Potter. If you want to write an insanely successful book that will earn you a kazillion dollars, then you have to find something new to write that is not Barry Slotter and the Magician's Mango or Shortly After Brunch-ish. Mmmmkay?
Moving on, Fallen has something that Twilight does not have and that something is a plot. It's unfortunate that the stupid Twilight-esque romance has to be stuffed in there to pretty much kill what would have otherwise been a good story.
Lucinda, also known as Luce, also known as Mary Sucinda but only to me, has been seeing weird shadow things for most of her life. Now she's being sent to the creepiest ever reform school after narrowly escaping a mysterious fire that killed her sort of boyfriend. All the kids are bad seeds and they all want to be her friend rather than kicking her ass but oh hey, who cares cause there's a hot guy.
No, seriously. This girl is bring haunted by evil shadows that can apparently cause fatal fires that could potentially kill her and all she cares about is learning more about Daniel Angelpants Cullenclone because that's what matters to her. Even when presented with hints of occult forces out to kick her ass, all she cares about is Mr. Hotty McNotavampire. While friends and bystanders are getting picked off, she still does not farking care. Well, maybe she sort of cares a little but not all that much because there are hotties to worry about.
Twilight was boring as hell. Hush, Hush was both boring and offensive. This book is actually interesting at first. The reform school is kinda scary and you really don't know which characters can be trusted. In fact, if the romance hadn't eaten the rest of the plot, the book would have been good. Unfortunately, the author apparently doesn't know why I should care about this romance, nor does she know why any of the other characters care. It's a mystery that cannot be revealed. It's as if Harry Potter started out with Harry being the boy who lived but we won't tell you what he lived through or why it's important because... well, we won't tell you that either. So, yeah. I don't know why I need to care, so I don't care.
Lucinda begins as a reasonably bearable character. I don't hate her. She has a bad case of adoraklutz but she does seem to appreciate having friends and makes an effort to be pleasant to people. Her closest friends are people she actually enjoys spending time with and she is pretty nice to them. It's only later in the book when she starts deciding that the best way to break up with the bad guy is by going off all alone with him. Why does she do this? Because the plot needs her to. The hero rescues her and then she goes and does the exact same stupid thing again. So the hero can save her again. Why? The plot needs her to. Apparently, ditching a scary creeper is not enough of a rejection. It is vitally important that you go off with him to a secluded place where no one knows where you are or can hear you screaming in order to tell him that you don't want to spend time with him. WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. THIS. GIRL????????
The hero, Daniel SexyMagicTrousers sort of has an excuse for blowing hot and cold. The premise of a doomed romance where the heroine constantly seeks out the guy no matter how hard he tries to avoid her is kinda cool. In fact, if someone had explained why everyone else seems to give a crap about this romance, I might actually care. Okay, you're doomed. I get it. This time is breaking the cycle. Right with you. And all the angels think this is important and worth fighting over because... whoops can't tell you because, for unspecified reasons, it would be bad. You might even, like die and stuff. Okay, WHY?????? Why does she die? What did she do? Why does this matter? If you don't tell me then the climax of your story loses all its tension because for all I know, killing our heroine would break the cycle and solve all our apocalyptic problems. Why can't we just kill her? They say that this time she can be permanent killed right? So, kill her and save the world already. Sheesh. If she had any consideration for others, she'd just off her own damn self. Hey, being less annoying than Bella Swan isn't the same as actually being likable. Kill her already.
Nope, killing her would be bad, because... nope, can't tell you.
Seriously, if you ask me, the author doesn't know. She didn't think it out. Maybe by the fourth book (Twilight had four books, so now we all have to have four books in a series) she'll think something up. Or not.
On the plus side, unlike in both Twilight and Hush, Hush, our heroine isn't passed out during the big fight scene. For some reason, she still can't understand what's happening well enough to actually tell the reader what's going but at least she's conscious. She's also tied up on an altar and waiting for one of the villains to kill her. How did this happen? Well, the villain has a knife and is threatening to stab her if she doesn't let herself be tied to the altar so the villain can stab her. Now why the villain didn't just, you know, stab her, I really don't know. I would have just stabbed her. I probably wouldn't even have gone to the trouble of revealing myself as the bad guy. I'd just have stabbed her ass and then, maybe I'd have mentioned it when she was dying. Or not. It probably would be a pretty awkward conversation, "Yep, in case you're wondering, I just killed you because I'm evil and stuff. I just thought you'd want to know, maybe. Hey, are you even still conscious? Dammit, I guess I should have monologued sooner."
I loved the first three Harry Potter books because they were brilliantly paced. You learn everything you need to know to understand what is happening and why it's important. At the end of the book, you feel satisfied that everything that needed explaining has been explained, but at the same time you want to know more about Harry's world and what happens next. You feel like there's more cool stuff to learn about, but you don't feel like you've been left hanging or that the author is avoiding certain details because she hasn't quite worked them out yet.
Harry Potter's world is fantastic, but it also follows it's own logic. When things happen that fall outside that norms for Harry's world (the flying car would be an example) people take notice and there are consequences. In the world of Fallen, reform school kids are watched by cameras except when it isn't convenient for them and then they can sabotage them without being caught. They can't smuggle contraband into the school, unless they feel like it and then they can. These kids are apparently doing magic right and left, because none of this stuff has any rational explanation, yet no one ever questions any of it. It doesn't leave you wondering if something might be up with this reform school, it leaves you asking how stupid the heroine has to be to not find it 100% obvious that something is up from the very first chapter.
Of course, maybe nothing is surprising in a world where a girl in reform school can cut all her hair short and no one stops to ask what sharp implement she used to accomplish this and where exactly is the implement? Rules? Pffft. The only rules are ones that advance the plot. Anything that sounds cool is totally fine. I'm surprised that they didn't work in a bag of holding.
And one more thing, I have to bitch about the church turned pool because ummm... okay. Look, it sounds cool. In a book where everything else made sense, you might even be able to go for it. Some insane benefactor made them do it. It was a loophole in the laws regarding historical landmarks. Only, there's no payoff to this thing. No one is getting ritually drowned in the pool. No one is accidentally baptized in the pool. The swimming pool isn't sacred or anything. By the end of the book, the characters have left the reform school which means that this can't be a build up to a payoff later on, because there's no good reason to go back to this particular place. Pretty much, the pool is a metaphor for the entire book. It's a great setup that is completely wasted.