Began reading: 21.7.2017
Completed reading: 22.7.2017
Overall rating: 3 stars
Unexpected. Unrequited. Forbidden. Eternal. Everyone has their own love story.
And in a twist of fate, four extraordinary love stories intersect over the course of a romantic Valentine’s Day in medieval England.
Miles and Shelby find love where they least expect it. Roland learns a painful lesson about finding and losing love. Arianne pays the price for a love so fierce it burns. And for the first – and last – time, Daniel and Luce spend a night together like none other.
Fallen In Love by Lauren Kate is a fictional young adult novel that contains fantasy, paranormal and romance themes. When I picked this up at the library, I became super excited because I would be getting an insight into other characters’ love lives. I really enjoyed this book; perhaps more than the previous three.
When Luce jumped into an Announcer to learn more about her past lives and the curse she bears, Miles and Shelby didn’t think twice when they jumped into another Announcer to find her. After stumbling through several Announcers and being unsuccessful in finding Luce, Miles and Shelby decide to stay in medieval England to locate a fallen angel who can transport them back to present-day Shoreline. As the two friends become involved in the upcoming Valentine’s Day festivities, they begin to see things in each other that they’d never noticed before. While travelling back to the same time period as Miles and Shelby, Roland recalls a time when he had a romance to rival Luce’s and Daniel’s – Rosaline was everything to him, but Roland soon realises that all decisions have consequences. Wanting Rosaline back, Roland seeks her out only to find that she has moved on and is now happy with another man; but when Roland is given an opportunity to win Rosaline back, he will discover that his dark side has more of an influence over him than he first thought. Similarly, Arianne’s love life is also explored and we learn that she comes very close to losing her faith – through the influence of her true love; Arianne attempts to fight against the darkness but maintain her relationship with one of Lucifer’s most trusted demons. Given an ultimatum, Arianne will have to make one of the most heartbreaking choices of her life. The mysterious scars on her neck will always be a reminder of her decision. Daniel and Luce had never celebrated a Valentine’s Day together, until now; but with Daniel’s sudden disappearance, Luce is unsure of whether or not he will show during the Faire. As the night progresses, Luce believes that Daniel has refused to appear; however, with the help of the fallen angels and Nephilim, Luce and Daniel share a Valentine’s Day that they will never forget.
After having read the previous three novels in this series, I was expecting this book to be well-written; however, I did find numerous spelling and grammatical errors – the worst being two chapters in the same section were labelled ‘Chapter Two’, which was strange – was I the only one who noticed that? Anyway, the literary techniques used in this book were good for creating detail and imagery to the narrative. The use of tragedy, setting and mood were particularly noteworthy. There were also some great quotes scattered throughout the book, including:
They’d shared something rare and beautiful, and he’d learned that women felt deeply when it came to love. They felt love in ways Roland could never understand, as if their hearts had extra chambers, vast infinites where love could stay and never leave (p. 96).
Solitude was one thing, but it warped into ugly, wretched loneliness after the soul had tasted love (p. 103).
Sometimes love was not about winning, but about wise sacrifice and the reliability of friends like Arianne. Friendship, Roland realised, was its very own kind of love (p. 110).
Every story required a turning point, an element of surprise (p. 118).
Maybe Tess was right: When one lover suffered from a broken heart, no matter how badly the other wanted to help, she couldn’t be the one to heal it (p. 148).
Sometimes love needed a lift from its guardian angels, to get its feet off the ground. But once it made its first early beats toward flight, it had to be trusted to take wing on its own and soar past the highest conceivable heights, into the heavens – and beyond (p. 201).
More quotes from the book can be found here.
It’s always nice to take a break from following the main characters of a series, so I was pleased that this novel explored the love lives of some other characters. I wasn’t too surprised to find that I enjoyed Roland’s and Arianne’s stories more than the other two, but I was surprised about what happened within those sections. I really loved reading more about Roland and Arianne, and seeing their friendship was so heart-warming! I’m not gonna lie, I shipped Roland and Arianne together but I’m just as happy that they are so close. I need to read more about them in the next book! Their stories were refreshing, which was why I enjoyed the novel as much as I did.
Usually, I can tell if I’ll enjoy a story based on the plot, and I love when it’s focused on one event or takes place in one location. Although I enjoyed the previous book in the series, I found the constant moving around to be irritating. Luckily, this novella was solely focused on the Valentine’s Day Faire in medieval England, so I was able to form an image of the location based on my knowledge of that time period. Another positive point about this is that it allows writers to make the text more detailed, and this was evident in the book.
Going back to the characters, it would have been nice to see more of the other characters in the series. I know it’s a novella, but what about Gabbe, Cam and Molly? Yes, they made appearances in this novel, but I wanted to read more about their past. I know Cam’s is coming up in Unforgiven, but I am especially interested in reading about Gabbe – does she have someone she loves? Or is she crushing on someone? If she’s so beautiful, she should have at least one love interest. I’m hoping that this is mentioned in the upcoming books.
The issue with reading novellas in a series is that they can sometimes make things confusing. This book comes after Passion, yet the plot takes place before Passion’s major plot twist. Maybe I’m just not used to reading novellas like this, but I think that it kind of messed up the order a little bit. I had to go back to Passion to try and figure out where this plot would have taken place in that book. Aside from giving readers a little insight into other characters’ lives, this book seemed pointless. The whole series is based around romance, so it didn’t feel like we needed a reminder of that.
I’m all for a little romance – not too much, but a well-written romance can build up my excitement about relationships between characters. I have a mini criterion when it comes to creating a good romance. Some of these points include: a realistic storyline, and needs to be predictable and unpredictable at the same time. These two points were not met in Miles’ and Shelby’s story – their relationship felt forced, and it wasn’t even hinted at in the previous two novels. It came out of nowhere and it didn’t fit in with what I already knew about these characters. They weren’t compatible – Miles is too nice, and Shelby came across as they type who would friendzone a guy like Miles. It was a bit messy, which turned me off their section of the book altogether.
My favourite character in this book was Arianne, as she was loyal, protective, sweet and adventurous. I liked her story the most, closely followed by Roland’s, and it was quite the tragedy. I felt so sad for her, but I’m glad that the mystery of how she got the scars was answered. Roland is a notable character.
Like I said before, I wasn’t a fan of Miles’ and Shelby’s relationship because it felt forced and unrealistic. I wasn’t all that surprised to find that I wasn’t much of a fan of Luce’s and Daniel’s story, either. By now, I’m kind of over their storyline because it’s just so cliché and predictable.
My favourite part of the novel was Arianne’s story because it was so tragic. Although I already knew her side (of the good vs. evil war), I was still expecting her to change sides. The story varied from the monotonous plot lines of Luce and Daniel, and Miles and Shelby. I don’t usually say this, but I love a good heartbreak every now and then, and Arianne’s story did it for me.
Recommendation time! If you like the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, The Hollow series by Jessica Verday, and the Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick, you will love this book. Also, I recommend this book to anyone who likes Fallen, the Twilight series, Lucifer tv series, The Vampire Diaries tv series, and Tuck Everlasting.
I will also be reviewing the rest of the Fallen series, including Rapture and Unforgiven. Keep an eye out for those!
Happy reading!
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