Began reading: 15.7.2017
Completed reading: 21.7.2017
Overall rating: 3 stars
"Every single lifetime, I'll choose you. Just as you have always chosen me. Forever."
Before Luce and Daniel met at Sword & Cross, before they fought the Immortals, they had already lived many lives. And so Luce, desperate to unlock the curse that condemns their love, must revisit her past reincarnations in order to understand her fate. Each century, each life, holds a different clue.
But Daniel is chasing her throughout the centuries before she has a chance to rewrite history.
How many deaths can one true love endure?
And can Luce and Daniel unlock their past in order to change their future?
Passion by Lauren Kate is a fictional young adult novel that contains fantasy, paranormal and romance themes. I purchased this book at a pop-up book shop years ago but never got around to it, but I’m glad that I finally did. Although it wasn’t as eventful as I’d liked, it was still fairly enjoyable.
Feeling overwhelmed by all of the lies and secrets held from her by her friends, Luce jumps into an Announcer to gain a better understanding of the curse on her and Daniel. Along the way, Luce meets Bill – a gargoyle, in charge of patrolling who enters and leaves the Announcers. Luce doesn’t realise that Bill is hiding a sinister secret with an even more malevolent motive for getting close to her. As Luce travels back in time, she discovers how different she is from her past selves, and how her family structure changes. Her love for Daniel is something that Luce wants to have validated, but is Daniel’s love blind and brought about because of the curse? After seeing Luce disappear into an Announcer, Daniel dives in after her to prevent her from changing the course of history. But when he is always one step behind her, Daniel will be forced to seek help from a suspicious source who has the power to erase all of the major events throughout history. Can Daniel catch up to Luce in time, or will he be responsible for the removal of all significant world events as well as his relationship with Luce?
As expected, the novel was well-written with notable structure and flow of narration. The use of literary techniques is always something that I look forward to in Kate’s books, and this novel was no exception. The utilisation of literary techniques such as allusion, foreshadowing and setting helped to develop the story and its world. There were also some great quotes, including:
So much of Moscow was burning. So many homes were being levelled. Luce tried to fathom the other lives being destroyed across the city tonight, but they felt distant and unreachable, like something she’d read about in a history book (p. 26).
People only ran this fast when they were desperate. When something bigger than them spurred them on (p. 26).
Cam turned away. ‘All this time I’ve been trying to deny it, but love is impossible, Dani.’
‘It is not.’
‘It is. For souls like ours. You’ll see. You may hold out longer than I could, but you’ll see. Both of us will eventually have to choose’ (pp. 318-319).
More quotes from the book can be found here.
In the past couple of novels, I have found the plot to be cliché and uninspiring. However, this book managed to keep things interesting, especially as I wanted to read more about Luce’s past lives. I thought that the time-travelling theme was interesting, especially as it was something that hadn’t really played much of a role in the series yet. I loved that Luce’s past selves weren’t exactly the same, especially the different names that she has gone by. Maybe it’s because my name is uncommon, but I love when my name appears in a book – there was a whole section with my name in it, so I was pretty excited! Anyway, I thought that the interaction with past selves was pretty clever, which is why I enjoyed the book as much as I did.
A range of characters is a feature that I look out for in a book, and something I expect in a series. So far, there has been an adequate amount of characters introduced, so I was ok with this book focusing on the protagonist. I liked that even though Luce was the primary focus, the secondary characters made an appearance in the plot. Their presence helped the narrative progress, but also made things interesting for Luce. Now that I know the characters of the series, I feel comfortable with deciding which of them I like and which I dislike. Having them play a role in this book gave me a sense of relief, in that I could ‘take a break’ from Luce and her irritating personality.
As much as I found the plot to be interesting, it quickly became repetitive. Like I said, I really enjoyed the time-travelling and Luce meeting her past selves, but after a couple of times it felt tedious. The plot became predictable after Luce figured out what she needed to know the first two times. Nothing makes a story duller than repetition and predictability. This, with the lack of any major events like a fight scene, made the story monotonous.
Speaking of a lack of events, there were no dramatic climaxes or a build up to something like a major conflict. Of course, there is quite a plot twist that could be seen as the significant turning point for the novel, but I don’t believe that that twist was enough. After finishing the novel, I feel that it resembled more of a novella rather than a novel. The book needed more action or something dramatic, as the past two novels do. The plot twist was great, but the lack of action influenced my average rating.
This is one of the biggest issues that I had, not only in this book but with this series, was the uninspiring and basically stupid protagonist. I find it amusing that Kate reiterates how smart Luce is – an example in this book is how well Luce did on a physics exam, yet something simple emphasises how dumb she really is. There was one instance where Bill hinted that Luce needed to touch her past self, and Luce stated that she had no idea what he was talking about. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: HOW CAN SHE BE SO STUPID?!
My favourite character is Bill – not because of his true identity, but because he was sassy, humorous, relatable and had ‘depth’. His appearances kept me turning the page, probably because I wanted to know more about him. The mystery that surrounded him, as well as his sassiness, had me wanting to know more and distracted me from the mess that is Luce. His honesty and the fact that he saw Luce and Daniel’s romance as boring made him relatable. My favourite part:
‘Regardless of how you two may look on the outside, you’ll always know each other’s souls.’
It hadn’t occurred to Luce until now how remarkable it was that she recognised Daniel in every life. Her soul found his. ‘That’s…beautiful.’
Bill scratched at a scab on his arm with a gnarly claw. ‘If you say so’ (p. 282).
Maybe I’m wrong, but after reading the previous two books in the series, I assumed that Daniel would be old enough, smart enough, and experienced enough to know when he’s being tricked. I won’t say who tricked him, but really Daniel? He’s spent so much time in Heaven and continued learning more after the Fall, yet he couldn’t recognise when someone was tricking him. I find that hard to believe, and also a little disappointing.
My favourite parts of the book were Luce’s past lives in Milan and at Versailles. I believed that her life in Milan was fairly action-packed and her role as a nurse to soldiers was endearing. To be honest, I would have liked to see more of her and Giovanni – and they might even be my new ship. As for Versailles, they storyline for that was dramatic and full of suspense.
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 Fallen in Love, Rapture and Unforgiven. Keep an eye out for those!
Happy reading!
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