Review: Torment by Kate Lauren

Description (from Goodreads)

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.

I'm not going to lie, my hopes where high for this book. Even though I knew it was going to be different from its predecessor due to the 'mystery' being solved. I just hoped that it wouldn't lose it's edge.

It did. It lost everything that made me like it in the first place. I didn't like Luce for most of this book. She was annoyingly brat-like. All she did was moan and whine and she just did too many things unexpectedly. I didn't get her. I didn't understand her motivations. I tried I really did.

I never really bought into Cam in Fallen, but it was Daniel who I felt let me down the most here. There didn't seem to be anything left of him that I liked. He seemed as desperate and as needy as Cam had been in book 1. Luce's friendship with Callie seemed pointless as well. We didn't 'know' who Callie was, we hadn't 'met' her so why have Luce talking about her all the time. Miles and Shelby were annoying replacements for those at sword and cross. Miles was annoying, and Shelby, well she was just dull.

I started to struggle halfway through. I was bored but then Luce fenced. It wasn't a spectacular fight scene but it was enough to suck me back in -It really helped that one of my twitter friends encouraged me to keep going for the twist at the end, so I began reading with more interest. It was slightly better second half than first, but I was not impressed with the ending; how Luce-like. It didn't feel like the end of a book, it felt more like an end to chapter. I feel that the story could have been told in half the amount of pages it actually took. In fact, torment and passion should have been one book. I'll still read passion. I have to, I'm already 2 books in and Daniel has to redeem himself, because seriously, he so didn't drop to the ground and bury his head in the grass, did he?

Rating: 3/4 - It Was Okay

Review: Fallen by lauran kate

Description (from goodreads)
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.

I'd seen reviews for Fallen on quite a few of the regular blogs and websites I visit. It always seemed to be compared to hush hush by Becca Fitzpatrick and I couldn't decide between them. Then while at a friends house one day, browsing in her library, I noticed she had Hush Hush. Decision made. So read it, and really liked it, then wondered if I should bother reading Fallen. Although I was mesmerised by the cover; it's gorgeous, the reviews on goodreads put me off -so many negative reviews (can I just say I can't actually believe people over on goodreads are compairing it to Twilight. Please, it's nothing like Twilight. At all). I ended up forgetting about it for few months. Until now.

We meet Luce as she's being sent off to reform school after an incident involving a fire and the death of her, boyfriend/guy she liked. I really liked the gothic feel it had to it. I also liked Daniel. The way we met him; Luce saw him and he smiled at her then flipped her off, and that sums his reaction to Luce throughout the first half of the book. The interactions between the characters are captivating enough that they keep you reading even though there's nothing much plot wise going on.

It felt more grown up than Hush Hush but to be honest I can't really remember much about Hush Hush -apart from the fact I read it in one sitting. I also read this in one sitting. I was total sucked in.

The only problem I had with this book was that once the big reveal was, well, revealed, it lost it's allure; the tension that held it all together disappeared.

I particularly liked Arrina and I'm looking forward to seeing how she develops in the next book.

The story was told in haunting, yet simple way. I just hope Torment is just as good... if not better.

Rating: 5/6 - Really Liked It