Fallen

Fallen by Lauren Kate

This novel has an interesting premise: Lucinda Price falls inexplicably in love with Daniel Grigori, a boy who seems to hate her at her new boarding school, which is actually a reform school where she's been placed because something mysterious happened to kill the last boy she kissed. Lucinda, known as Luce, has been haunted by dark shadowy figures all her life, to the extent that she had been on antipsychotic medications. Now she's off her meds and the dark shadows are hounding her again. She's pretty sure they killed that other boy, but she doesn't want anyone at her new school to know about that. Although she feels drawn to Daniel, he's sending mixed signals. And some of his cryptic comments intimate that they have known each other before meeting at school. But how is that possible? Meanwhile, Cameron is flirting with her and seems to like her.

I ended up not liking Fallen very much because Lauren Kate does not incorporate a good explanation for the dark shadows. Although the romance is well drawn, the paranormal elements remain murky. In fact, the climax of the novel seems more sketchy than fully portrayed with far too many elements left unexplained or scantily explained. The editor should have asked for more detail, then perhaps the novel could have been more satisfying. There's a second volume due out soon, Torment, but I'm not going to bother with it.