Torment by Lauren Kate

I would say there are spoilers for Fallen in this review, but honestly, the plot of Fallen is so predictable that you know from the moment you read the blurb that girl and boy will get together, so there really is no need. Anyway, the plot of Torment follows on from that of Fallen, and has a few added ‘twists’, which Fallen was lacking in; Luce and Daniel have to separate after finally having found each other because he has to kill the people who want to kill her, so Luce is hidden at a special school for Nephilim (the offspring of fallen angels and humans), where she learns a lot of things – about herself, the shadows that she sees…and Daniel through manipulating the shadows to see into the past, which isn’t quite his version…

I think the main reason I read and reviewed Torment (anyone else find hilarious irony in the title?) was so I could have its cover on my blog–I don’t know how each cover of the series is made to be so devastatingly gorgeous, but serious kudos to the designers, although it does trick people into reading the garbage inside–and to warn others who have not yet made the mistake of carrying on with the Fallen series to not do so.

I should mention the good points about Torment first – with every book she writes, Kate’s writing improves quite a considerable amount, and whilst I preferred the plot of Fallen as it was much less confusing and more interesting, the writing was a lot better here, although Kate annoyingly clearly likes to consult a thesaurus every now and then. Also, the cover is stunning, as I keep on mentioning, but seriously that is worth a star all on its own!

Now the bad: what is it with YA romance that when you fall in lurve, you cannot be even comprehend being separated for weeks; yes, you read that right – not seconds or minutes or even hours but entire weeks – even if it is for their own safety it just makes everything laughable, especially when both concerned are annoying characters – I always find Kate’s secondary characters to be far more interesting than the protagonists. I found Torment pretty dull with a slow pace, and quite a few pages too many; but then when things started to happen, it got really confusing and left more questions than answers.

To me it speaks volumes that the snippets of praise for Fallen is from the Sun (a vile, lying, not-to-be-trusted scumbag of a newspaper) and rabid fans, who claim Kate is a “genius” and that Fallen was “the most romantic page-turner of all time” – seriously?! Ooh, and we have ANOTHER gorgeous boy who falls in lurve with Luce, whose lurve tale is a night-time story to Nephilim for reasons completely unknown – it can’t possibly because she’s interesting or witty, as throughout eight hundred pages I haven’t seen a shred of evidence showing these traits – it’s inexplicable why most of the couples who fall in love in YA these days actually do – her only character development is to get even more annoying and even more stupid. 

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[SYNOPSIS: In Torment fallen angel Daniel and his mortal love Lucinda think they are safe but evil forces are massing against them. As Luce learns more about her past, and discovers that the lives she’s already lived hold the key to her future happiness; she starts to wonder if Daniel has told her the whole truth. What if his version of events isn’t the way things happened? What if that means that she’s really meant to be with someone else?]

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Luce Price killed a boy…except, she believes she didn’t, even though she can’t remember anything about the night it happened; nonetheless, she is shipped off to a reform school where she meets a number of screwed up kids, all forms of communication barring a fifteen minute phone call once per week are banned, and cameras capture every movement. One of the screwed up kids is Daniel Grigori, who flips her off at their first meeting, yet who Luce feels drawn to…almost as though they know each other, yet she’s never met him before…is she really crazy? 

I really don’t know what happened to Kate’s writing between The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove and this, but whatever it was, I want to hug it because her writing has improved so much – Fallen was actually readable, and didn’t get thrown down multiple times in disgust! Fallen is by no means a masterpiece, and Kate still far from what call an author, but I liked it so much more than Betrayal, which admittedly isn’t saying much as I abhorred Betrayal. So. Much.

Fallen was quite slow to get going, could have easily cut a hundred pages of Luce wallowing in self pity, and is further evidence that Pretty Covers Disguise Horrible Books; but seriously, that cover is stunning (bar the quote from P.C. Cast *shudders*), as are the entire series’ covers – I can’t wait to see Rapture’s (yes, there is a fourth one). Sadly the cover is the best thing about Fallen though: we have the typical cliché of the two hottest boys in school who fall hopelessly in lurve with our stunning protagonist even though she has no personality to speak of – she likes to think of herself as smart, but of course falls into the Too Stupid To Live category, and whines the entire way through the book about the scary shadows that follow her, and the fact that Daniel seems to hate her.

 The ‘villain’ was laughably cliché and there isn’t much plot to speak of until the last few pages where it is horribly rushed and predictable but consists namely of A) What is up with Daniel (and also Luce for falling in love with him because he flips her off at their first meeting, which naturally leads to her stalking him out and breaking into his personal record), B) What happened the night Luce’s crush died in a mysterious fire that Luce herself can’t remember anything about, despite possibly causing it, and C) What are the annoying shadows that Luce repeatedly sees and moans about – these mysteries are what power you to keep reading, and Kate annoyingly knows this and refuses to divulge the answers until the last few pages, where we get ridiculous explanations.

 The ‘reform’ school that was Sword & Cross couldn’t have been any less reform – their major punishment was setting impossibly long essays for homework and keeping the kids in the same room all day; whilst their security cameras were easily disabled, and remained that way, and the extremely dangerous psychotic kids were allowed free run of the grounds – if only Kate had bothered to do some research, especially in angel mythology, then Fallen might have actually been somewhat alright.

 Despite all of this, for some reason I can't put my finger on, I found myself almost enjoying reading Fallen, and I even borrowed the sequel, Torment, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

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[SYNOPSIS: 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.]

Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton

Blood Magic had a fresh and interesting premise – basically that magic exists, but it needs blood to work – but is yet another book let down by the horrible execution. Firstly, the romance was utterly clichéd and happened so fast (literally as soon as Silla and Nick meet) that it was laughable, as was the amount of so-called passion between them mere days after meeting – I wouldn’t have been surprised if Nick proposed by the end of the novel at the rate their romance developed… actually, it was the only thing that ‘developed’ in Blood Magic. Do you want to know Nick’s ‘adorable’ and ‘endearing’ pet name for the love of his life? Babe. Constantly. She is not a pig!

 All of the characters were very flat and unrealistic and the alternating viewpoints sounded exactly the same a la Shiver. Silla’s ‘mask’ thing where she pretends to put on different pretty masks to give her, for example, confidence or a sense of calm, got annoying, but that could have been because I didn’t warm to her. The story and prose were boring and both were difficult to get through, mostly because I just didn’t care that much, but also because they were horrible. I think Gratton may have been aware of this, as she tries to spice up the story with the disturbing death of a bunny – Silla kills it for its blood by decapitating it, and then forgets to collect most of the blood so it turns out pointless anyway, finally hurling the poor thing’s head as far as she can throw it…and then doesn’t regret it, which put me even more off her character.

I was interested in Blood Magic at first, mainly because we dive straight into the story, and also by the mystery surrounding the death of Silla’s parents-everyone except Silla believes her dad killed her mum, then turned the gun on himself-the intriguing ‘blood magic’ and finally because I hate to leave a book unfinished. The plot was predictable, there were too many pages and chapters (sixty or so in about four hundred – seriously?!) which could have easily been cut out. Also, Josephine’s chapters were supposed to have started in the 1900s but sounded extremely modern-day, with the exception of the Random words That were Capitalised, which she thankfully Grew out Of.

I can see that some Twilight fans might enjoy Blood Magic, but I found it pretty hard work to get through and I won’t be picking up the sequel when it comes out.

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[SYNOPSIS: The murder of her parents has left Silla damaged and lost, and Silla's insistence that her father is not to blame only alienates her further from her friends and family. When a mysterious spell book arrives, Silla hopes it will lead to some answers about her parents' killer. In her first attempt at magic, in an old graveyard near her home, Nick, the new boy in town spies on her; he recognizes the magic that Silla is performing as the same magic his mother performed with him, before she went mad. Before long, Silla and Nick connect, though Nick is unwilling to share his history with blood magic with Silla. When Silla's friends start showing signs of possession, Silla, Nick and Silla's brother, Reese, must contend with a deadly, immortal woman who will stop at nothing to take the book of spells from them.]