Book: Torment by Lauren Kate

Published: September 2010 by Delacorte Press|392 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: Fallen #2

Genre: YA Paranormal

Hell on earth.

That’s what it’s like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel.

It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts—immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.

At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn’t told her everything. He’s hiding something—something dangerous.

What if Daniel’s version of the past isn’t actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

The second novel in the addictive FALLEN series . . . where love never dies.

For some reason, I decided to pick this book up even though it’s been ages since I’ve read the first book.

I did like seeing Luce at Shoreline, and seeing her fit into a world she didn’t know about.  There’s more to it than I thought, and I really liked seeing everything with the Shadows.  We learn a lot more about everything going on with Daniel, and what happened so long ago.

I did leave the book with more questions than answers, and I want to know more about Luce and why she can do what she can do.  I am absolutely convinced there is more to it, and I’m hoping we’ll get some answers.  I have the feeling the answers will be replaced with a million more questions, since there are a couple more books to go in the series.  But still, I would like some answers.  Especially with the Outcasts.  And the battle at the end of book.  It wasn’t completely explained and I’m hoping there are answers in the next book.

I didn’t particularly like Daniel.  He’s supposed to be the good guy, and the whole reason Luce is in this situation is because of Daniel.  And yet, it seems like she is an object for him to have.  Cam seems to care more about her safety than Daniel, and he seems much more willing to actually talk to her and explain things to her.

Daniel is really moody, and while I don’t expect him to be a saint, I expected something different from him.  It really seems like he loves the idea of Luce, and their epic history, but he’s shown no interest in wanting to get to know her.  Maybe he’s trying to protect himself after decades of finding her, only to lose.  It doesn’t make his behavior okay, because it’s not.  But I don’t get the sense that he really, truly cares about her and I’m having a hard time rooting for them.  It really feels like there’s no chemistry between Daniel and Luce.

Speaking of Luce, she was pretty whiny, but I don’t really blame her.  I think I would be too.  At least there were a few students who made things better for her while she was at Shoreline.  Hopefully she’ll continue to have some sort of group who makes things bearable.  I think it may be good for her, but we’ll see.

My Rating: 3 stars.  I liked it the same as Fallen (the first book) but I still want to keep reading.  I’m hoping Daniel will be different, but we’ll see.

Book: Passion by Lauren Kate

Published June 2011 by Delacorte Press|420 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the hardcover from the library

Series: Fallen #3

Genre: YA Paranormal/Angels

‘Every single lifetime, I’ll choose you. Just as you have chosen me. Forever.’

Luce would die for Daniel. And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn’t need to be that way…Luce is certain that something – or someone – in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey of this lifetime…going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel…and finally unlock the key to making their love last.

Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history. Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames…forever.

I liked Passion, and it is very different than the previous two books in the series.  In this book, we see Daniel and Luce, over centuries and how they’ve found each other, time and time again.  I did like seeing how they found each other, and I certainly liked seeing how Luce reacted to her past.  However, Daniel’s chapters were really confusing, and, for me, didn’t add a whole lot to the book.  If they were a little more like Luce’s chapters, I don’t think I would have minded as much, and they did get less confusing as the book went on.  But for the most part, they didn’t work for me.

It was really slow, and there were times where I was pretty bored reading it.  Especially with the switch in narrators, and I’ve already talked about how Daniel’s chapters didn’t work for me.  It just made the book seem more confusing and also…we’re perfectly fine in Luce’s world, and then things change suddenly, and it made the book seem like a big, huge mess.  It made the book feel like Kate wasn’t sure what direction to go in with this book.

We do discover the reason for the time travel, but I feel like it took us a while to get there.  I get why Luce had to time travel, but it could have been a lot more interesting.  Maybe we just didn’t get enough time in each time period.

Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t get any better in this book, and while I didn’t like him before…I think I liked him even less in this book.  The tortured soul thing is bored and tired and downright irritating.  Luce, while entirely too trusting (cough *Bill* cough), was at least doing something.  Daniel, on the other hand, spent a lot of time moping around.

Oh, speaking of Bill…I liked him for a bit, but I wasn’t surprised by his story line.  At all.  Well, parts of it, anyway.  I thought other parts were…sorta lame.

Nothing was really explained, and and things seem to come of nowhere.  Like, we learned a little more about the relationship between Daniel and Cam, that too wasn’t explained well.  And it came out of nowhere.  I feel like that happened a lot in this.  Things come out of nowhere and aren’t really explained.

My Rating: 3 stars.  I’m wavering between 2 and 3 stars for this one, but I decided to go with 3 for this one.  I did like seeing Luce time travel and I did like seeing her reaction to her past selves.  Even though a lot of things didn’t make sense, for some reason, I did still like this book, though it’s my least favorite book in the series so far.