Hi there Rad Readers...
Not too hyped for this review for I feel as though I have wasted plenty of time in my life reading this book yet I stand by my claim that to stop reading in the middle of a story is the greatest injustice a reader can do. Thus I find it fair to say that this was the slowest novel of all time and agonizing to complete. It could not hold my attention whatsoever and so this was a long long long period of struggle.
Anyways, I suppose I will tell you what this story is about.
We follow Luce who prior to the story was involved in a tragic accident where her boyfriend dies in a fire. She wasn't able to remember any details from the incident so she is sent off to a sort of reform school called Sword & Cross. At the school she meets Daniel and for whatever reason he is extremely cold towards her without even knowing her. She on the other hand feels a whole lot of déjà vu. Everything feels achingly familiar to her even though she has never been to Sword & Cross or anything like it, and has never even had a conversation with Daniel. She feels like she already knows him. Luce is on a mission to find out the mysteries of this school, and to find out what Daniel is hiding from her... or hiding her from? Of course, "madness" then ensues.
I say "madness" because it was not that exciting or mad at all to be honest. The ending was capital L Lame! There was so much going on that it just got confusing. There were so many open holes and so much that was just redundant or simply should have been cut out for concision. It dragged on and could not hold my attention. Not every book requires three great battles in immediate succession. If the rising action doesn't fit with the rest of the novel... then hey dog... cut it out! Nobody is going to be complaining that you only had one epic showdown between angels and demons instead of three. People will instead complain that you had three absolutely mediocre, confusing and poorly developed battles.
The ending was absurd. Every character ended up being a part of the conflict at the end. I agree that each character should have a purpose in a book and should not simply exist as a vacuum for forgotten content or a person to use when the author needs to kill someone off, etc. etc. It is transparent to the reader that that is what they are meant for. On the other hand... Not every character needs to have an earth shattering role. Some characters should just be the supportive best friend or the comedic relief. It was overwhelming and confusing in the end when each character held this massive part of the inner workings of Luce's mysteries. In Fallen, a side character that was not really developed and we didn't spend much time with at all ended up making a huge contribution to the conflict in the last 30 or so pages. This is never a good technique! It is a cop out! It is far different when you think that you know a character really well and then they turn out to be different. In this case you didn't know a character really at all, but you would assume that you should considering their relevance to the greater cause... but that is just not the case in this book! And I did not appreciate it!
Here is the real kicker though, after that longggg boringggg stretched outttt ending, NO CONFLICT WAS EVER RESOLVED! Literally Luce never figured out the conflict and was just like... okay, sounds good. NO LUCE! NO! WHAT DO YOU MEAN! We get to this climax where all hell breaks loose (pun intended... Hell, you get it... because... okay sorry, not very funny) and then the book kind of just stops. I think (and this is one of by biggest pet peeves coming up so get ready) it ended the way that it did for the sake of writing a second novel. A book should have an epic ending that makes you want to read the second, it should not have a lack luster ending where you found out nothing and if you really care enough to figure it out you have to read the next book. There are too many unanswered questions for my liking.
I know I typically will do a little character analysis on each of the important characters but in the end I guess we found out that they were all important so whatever. I think this book is purposely trying to mess with my blog formula. I will simply just tell you about the main three characters that stayed relevant throughout the entire novel. I don't even have to do it individuals because the characters are so similar one analysis can truly apply to all. They are pretentious, over dramatic, angsty, absurdly complicated, and rather unintellectual kids stuck in a reform school only for the purpose of getting into more trouble it seems like. The concept of the school is ridiculously unbelievable and I know that it is a fantasy but guys, seriously, it is even too ridiculous for a fantasy. It is giving me Vampire Diaries vibes and we KNOW how unrad of a read that was. Luce is boring, annoying, whiney, conceited. I don't like Daniel. He doesn't say much, too broody, BORING. Cam was the only one I kind of liked. He was at least interesting and I didn't know what to think of him.
Fallen felt like a second book slump even though it was the first book, so I can only imagine the horror that the second book contains. Needless to say, I will never know because I will never be reading it.
Keep it rad, readers,
- C8 ;)