The sky is dark with wings. . . .
Like sand through an hourglass, time is running out for Luce and Daniel. To stop Lucifer from erasing the past, they must find the place where the angels fell to earth.
Dark forces are after them, and Daniel doesn’t know if he can do this—live only to lose Luce again and again. Yet together they face an epic battle that will end with lifeless bodies . . . and angel dust. Great sacrifices are made. Hearts are destroyed.
And suddenly Luce knows what must happen. For she was meant to be with someone other than Daniel. The curse they’ve borne has always and only been about her—and the love she cast aside. The choice she makes now is the only one that truly matters. In the fight for Luce, who will win?
Rapture is the fourth and final installment in the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. I went through this series on a whim really. When I started, the 3rd book had just come out and I bought that on accident, thinking it was the first. So I went back and started with the first book. Although not blown away, I was definitely hooked and intrigued. Having waited for about a year, I finally got to read the last piece of the puzzle!
The Fallen series is one that I picked up purely because I thought the covers were pretty. Lucky for me, they really did turn out to be good solid books. Alas, Rapture brings us to the end of the series and it was a lovely ending.
This has probably been the most “tragic” series of books that I have read. It seems like no matter how hard the characters try, something just always blows up in their faces. Rapture is no exception to that little doozy of a rule.
After her little time warp dance through the millennia, Luce comes back to the Daniel of the present to let him know that she understands their love…..just in time to get the big bitch slap. Now our cutesy little star-crossed lovers are in this never-ending anxiety attack that is a race against time to stop Lucifer before he screws it up for everyone.
I am FAR from being a “girly girl” so this series was very out of the norm for me. It’s all very “I would move mountains and, you know, Volkswagens and stuff for you”. It’s sweet and all but my books are usually like “I just beheaded that guy to prove that I like to do it with you.” So for me to step out of my normal taste in books, and stick with it through the whole series, is saying something.
This journey has brought us here. The ending to this great story. Yep, I admit it. I cried. Like a bitch. In fact, the day I finished the audio book, I was listening to it on the way to work and had to collect my mental state before climbing out of the car because I had looked like I just received very bad news. It takes a lot for a book to move me to being all teary eyed but Rapture did it. I don’t recall crying at all during the first three but I could be mistaken.
As I have said with the rest of this series, the story line is incredibly original. The fall of the angels isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill Young Adult material. The “history” in this particular installment is pretty captivating. And the description that the author uses for everything is pretty intense. It’s obvious that she’s trying to paint such a detailed picture that next to nothing is left to the imagination.
We are introduced to a small handful of new people in Rapture but not many since the point of the book is to finally wrap up the story. However, I felt that the small cast of characters that we meet in Rapture left FAR more of an impression on me than in any of the other books.
I formulated 3 theories when I was about half way through this book and about 80% of the way through, I discovered that two of the three theories were dead on correct. I wouldn’t say this is a short coming of the book because it is, after all, a young adult book and I am over 30…. The usual reader of this book is probably not analyzing the story line to death. And being able to guess a couple of the big plot reveals really didn’t stop me from wanting to finish the book. If anything, it made me want to keep pushing on.
There are only two things I found frustrating about this book and one of them has nothing to do with the author or the book. First, once I hit about half way through the book, I will realized that there is far more to this story than I thought and the author gives a little taste and then doesn’t mention it again. Just when I’d start to forget about it, she pokes you and says “hey, remember that thing? Here’s a peek.”. She lets you see another sliver of the big secret and then cuts you off again. It goes on like this FOREVER. I wont tell you what the big secret is, obviously, but I can tell you that you probably wont see it coming.
The second thing, the one that has nothing to do with the author, is the narrator. I listen to a LOT of audio books and the chick that narrated this series falls somewhere in my top 5 list of narrators that I genuinely can’t stand. I honestly can’t even completely pinpoint what the issue is. It’s something to do with long drawn out words and being really “breathy”. If you have ever seen the movie Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events, just picture the way Count Olaf speaks, except that the words are pronounced correctly. It’s just annoying. Well, her voice made it so I, Jena, the woman who would listen to audio books 24-7 if allowed, didn’t even want to turn on my iPod some days. It took me 7 days to listen to a 10 hour audio book. That would normally take me about 2 days. 3 tops if I have meetings. However, as I said, that has absolutely nothing to do with the book’s content.
Overall, I am going to give Rapture 4.5 stars. It’s a good solid book and definitely my favorite out of the entire series. I’m a little sad to see the series go but at the same time, I don’t think that the ending could have possibly been done better. It was the perfect ending to what proved to be an epic tale of the heart. Well done Ms. Kate. Well done.
Fallen
Fallen Series #1
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Torment
Fallen Series #2
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Passion
Fallen Series #3
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Rapture
Fallen Series #4
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I love the book covers on this series! Though, I don’t think the 3rd fits with the rest lol. I need to get started on this series already. I always hear good things about it 🙂
I thought that the third was a bit out of place. However, it was also the one that I had a lot of fun reading. Re the cover art, I adore it. It’s actually the feature of this weeks The Cover Story post (tomorrow) 🙂