Review: Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate

Synopsis (via Goodreads):

How many lives do you need to live before you find someone worth dying for? In the aftermath of what happened at Sword & Cross, Luce has been hidden away by her cursed angelic boyfriend, Daniel, in a new school filled with Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. Daniel promises she will be safe here, protected from those who would kill her. At the school Luce discovers what the Shadows that have followed her all her life mean - and how to manipulate them to see into her other lives. Yet the more Luce learns about herself, the more she realizes that the past is her only key to unlocking her future...and that Daniel hasn't told her everything. What if his version of the past isn't actually the way things happened...what if Luce was really meant to be with someone else?

My Thoughts: There were things about this book I loved and things about this book that I didn't exactly love but that I accept as the path these characters have to go on to complete their journey.

I love the cover.  Absolutely love it.  It's, hands down, my favorite of 2010.  When I look at it, I see agony and indecision and the fog of not quite knowing why you're in a certain place at a certain time.  I'm telling you, this cover made me want to read the series.

Being the middle book in a trilogy, there's a lot of setup for what's coming in book 3.  Luce and Daniel don't have it easy.  Daniel is trying to keep Luce safe and his way of doing this is to issue orders without explaining why she needs to follow them.  Luce can't blindly follow.  She needs to know why she's being told to do this or not do this or stay hidden.  She needs to reconcile her past lives with Daniel, which he's lived through and she simply knows about, in order to accept that their love is endless.  She needs to come to terms with the fact that, once upon a time, Daniel chose her and their love is the edge on which the fate of the world balances.

Did I love that their epic love, the love that drove book 1, is strained and fragile here?  Not exactly.  But if Luce doesn't question and blindly follows, she'll be losing a part of herself.  Before she met Daniel she was a person.  Being Daniel's meaning for living and loving doesn't change that fact.  If she allows herself to become nothing more than Daniel's Luce, how is she shortchanging herself?

So, no, I didn't love that Daniel and Luce's relationship was strained.  However, Luce's journey is far from over and she still has a lot to learn.  About herself, about Daniel, about the upcoming battle, about the angels and demons who are massing on the horizon.

I, for one, can't wait to see where the next book takes her.

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Fallen
1. Fallen
2. Torment
3. Passion

More books by Lauren Kate