Fallen (Guardian Trilogy, Book 1) by Laury Falter

 
     Fallen by Laury Falter
          Kindle Edition: $2.99
          Print Edition: $9.99
          Length: 274 pages
          Reading Level: YA
          Fallen on Amazon (opens in a new window)

Whew. Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving and all those other holidays I've missed. Sorry about the absence, I've been moving and not with Internet and other such things. I also just finished the third book in this series yesterday. Maybe the day before, at the earliest. I know, it's unheard of. I can sometimes put down multiple books in a day. But for some reason, this second read through of Falter's series took ages. I even had to use the "notes" function on my Kindle. I'll get to that, though. First, as with the other entries, I want to briefly discuss the cover.

It's simple. And that's not a bad thing. Its simplicity is something to be admired, especially after reading the book. The feather is symbolic of everything that lies within, and even the graduated colors (grey and white) are important. My biggest gripe is that Falter's name is too small. As an author, call me crazy, but you want people to recognize your name, and then seek you out. There's really not much more than can be said about it, so my final opinion is that it is...effective.

Maggie Tanner moves. A lot. As an orphan who lives with her photojournalist Aunt, she's constantly traveling. Until she's dumped in the Big Easy, New Orleans, to live with her Aunt's friend Ezra while on an extended assignment. And for the first time, Maggie feels like she's at home. In the home of (American) Voodoo, she no longer sticks out because of her special gift. Maggie can speak to the dead every time she goes to sleep. And then things start to get weird.

So, here we have another Fallen Angel story. This one is significantly less theological than previously reviewed books. It's more...spiritual, I suppose. There's very little talk of God or Hell or Satan. It's pretty much just good versus evil, with wings. There is a Heaven, but it's more of an idea than anything concrete. Sort of. It's hard to explain, really. However, there are really no redeeming qualities to the "evil" angels like there are in After Eden. Everything in Fallen is very black and white, cut and dried. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. There is literally only one exception to this rule, and I can't even really talk about it because it's meant to be a surprise.

The aforementioned spirituality stems from an almost-Buddhist universe, in which people are nearly constantly reincarnated. It's an interesting look at the idea of previous lives and soul mates, kind of how I imagine Cloud Atlas to be. This provides a great excuse for the insta-love between Maggie and Eran. They know they're supposed to be together, not through any logical means, but through spiritual ones. The romance, sadly, is all but nonexistent. At least, I feel that it's severely lacking.

Falter tries to make Eran the dashing savior romance novel lead, complete with a British accent, but I don't feel that we, as an audience, are ever really shown his swoon-worthiness. We're just told that he's supposed to be swoon worthy and we have to accept that at face value. It's a bit disappointing, because there is definitely a lot of potential. It's even more disappointing that she (Falter) seems to depend on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight cliches. For example, while they are kissing or hugging or whatever, Maggie stops breathing and nearly passes out (or does pass out completely, in other scenes) and Eran has to forcibly remind her to inhale. This happened several times in Twilight and it was ridiculous every time.

As for the bad guys- well, they just aren't scary. Maggie’s life is repeatedly in danger, and luckily her guardian angel is there, but it just never feels like there was actually a risk. When I read a book, I want to dread meeting the villain(s). I want my skin to crawl, and I want to be concerned that the hero or heroine isn’t going to walk away with just a story to tell over drinks-they’ll be lucky if they walk away at all. Falter is definitely trying, but with the Fallen being one-note, direct threat on Maggie’s life installations, they feel like they are put there because she’s totally in danger, guys!

The writing, overall, isn't what I'd call sloppy, but it definitely could use a spit shine. There's several issues with commas, apostrophes, plurals, and homophones. I found them distracting, and paired with some just plain poor word choices, this is a noticeably "indie" novel, in that it clearly didn't have an editor (or ten) poring over it. Falter also made some choices that I would question, because when I was in writing classes, we were told to avoid exclamation points at all costs. And capital letters. And repeated letters (i.e., “noooooooooooooooooooooo!”) To me, these make the story appear amateur, even when the idea is good. Some descriptions of character's physicality seemed incredibly contrived, such as Maggie describing herself as having too large of eyes. Since when are large eyes an undesirable feature on a female? Isn't that what the mascara industry is all about? Falter also made the creative choice to use written dialects for every character but Eran, so Rufus, who is Irish, has his dialog written as such. There is also a cajun-accented character whose dialect is nearly unreadable. But this is a personal gripe for me; because I absolutely hate reading written dialects. 

Another Indie Red Flag is the formatting. Or rather, lack thereof. There is no navigating chapters in this book, everything must be done page by page. This isn’t necessarily the be all end all of bad formatting though. It’s really just a minor inconvenience to Kindle readers. The bigger problem is the way things appear on the page. There are blank pages between chapters. Sometimes it’s only one, sometimes it’s more. A couple chapters start halfway down the page, which is just irritating to look at. By themselves, these wouldn’t be issues, but everything combined just interrupts the natural flow of the story.

The first time I read this book, I couldn’t get enough. I finished the trilogy in about a day and a half. I read it through entire classes, late into the night, basically I had my nose buried in my kindle whenever I had a spare moment. This time, I was unable to become absorbed by the story like I once was. I even became irritated. What were previously minor inconveniences were suddenly huge problems, and I would put the book away after ten or so pages. It was a truly alarming experience, especially when I realized that it took me two months to complete a series. It didn’t even take me that long to re read all seven Harry Potter books. I was even more unnerved by the fact that when I was deciding to choose this book for the next blog entry, I was excited. I remembered liking the series and I couldn’t wait to get started. I remembered really connecting with Maggie and lusting after Eran. This time, I was just annoyed by them. I found much of their actions forced and contrived. I didn’t believe in them, or the so-called sexual tension.

Now, I realize that this has been an overwhelmingly negative review. But I still don’t hate the books. The first read through had me totally enraptured. I think that this could still happen for many people, particularly those who have an affinity for the fallen angel genre. But, unlike some novels, there seems to be, for now, very little reread value. So give it a shot, but don’t expect to go for it twice.

-Kayla