"Passion" by Lauren Kate

From Goodreads: "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you. Just as you have chosen me. Forever."

Luce would die for Daniel. And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn’t need to be that way. . . .

Luce is certain that something—or someone—in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey of this lifetime . . . going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel . . . and finally unlock the key to making their love last.

Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history.

Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames . . . forever."

I was a really big fan of Lauren Kate's "Fallen" (the first book in her series of the same name). I thought that it was a really unique book because at the time of its release the whole fallen angel element had not yet been played around with much in YA pararnormal books (or not played around to the extent that it is today). Furthermore, not only did it have a completely original story line, but it had great characters to boot (Hello Daniel and Cam!). But when I read the next book in her "Fallen" series, "Torment", I was completely disappointed by it- I felt that it had so much potential but it fell flat. I thought that it deviated way too much from the original storyline (with all of the talk of Announcers, Outcasts, etc.) and the characters that we had come to love in "Fallen" did not play all that large of role in it (again, Daniel and Cam), whereas characters that we were only 'so-so' about played a massive role in it (ie. Miles, Shelby, and Callie). But I think that my biggest criticism of it was the main character, Luce, herself. I couldn't comprehend her thought processes at all, one minute she was all hot when it came to Daniel, the next minute she was totally ice cold.

Therefore, when I started "Passion", the third book in Lauren's "Fallen" series, I will admit that I was very hesitant to do so. I really and truly thought that I would think about this book (and series in general) what I did about Carrie Jones' "Need" series, that the first book in the series was super amazing, but that the later books in the series were huge disappointments, but that wasn't the case- well, not entirely...

I would say a good fifty or so pages of this book I was entirely turned off by it, I really hated the direction that it was headed (again, with the whole Announcers thing), but I also really disliked it because of a newly introduced character- Bill the gargoyle. Though I guess that you could argue that this series isn't realistic, it is by far not the most unrealistic YA paranormal series out there in my opinion- I mean the characters don't turn into dragons or anything of that sort (angels, especially fallen angels, have been chronicled pretty much since the beginning of forever therefore making it 'semi-realistic'), but once Bill was introduced, well my opinion of it being 'semi-realistic' completely flew out of the window. I thought that in the beginning Bill was such an unnecessary (and annoying) character, I really do think that I would have preferred to have seen Luce fall and pick herself up by herself and not with the help of a little sketchy critter.

I then decided to put aside my growing hatred of Bill to focus on what was really important about the book, the history of Luce, Daniel and their love. In doing so, I could not only start to tolerate the book (and the direction that it was heading), but actually start to enjoy it. I thought that each little world that Lauren wrote of was really interesting and quite well developed. I would very much be interested in seeing even more of their lives together (ie. months if not years, as opposed to the very short amount of time we did see pass in each of them, ie. days/ weeks). But what I was kinda confused about in their past lives was how Daniel was able to change his appearance (in one of their lives together he had skin the colour of hot chocolate with equally dark hair, the next he was his typical blonde haired, light skinned coloured self) when Lauren explains that very little about angels bodies change (well in relation to scars at least, but I think it would make sense to apply it to other parts of their bodies as well).

What I definitely liked most about this book was that it actually answered all of burning questions that we had from the previous two book (ie. How did Luce and Daniel meet? What started their curse? Can it be broken? Do they want it to be broken? etc.).

All in all, while this book is by no means as good as "Fallen", it is by no means as bad as "Torment". I am quite interested in seeing where Lauren takes the final book in the series, Rapture".

Rating: 8.5/10

Memorable lines from the book:

"I wanted to give Daniel hope... His half of our curse is so much worse than mine" (pg. 260).

"This was it: the moment that broke Cam's heart so that it rotted into something black" (pg. 317). 

"He wasn't afraid for her, not because she was walking into the darkness of another death. He didn't fear that it might cause her pain. Daniel was afraid of her" (pg. 347).

"And to think, she had almost given this up" (pg. 411).