Title: Rapture (Fallen #4)
Author: Lauren Kate
Published: June, 2012 by Delacorte Press
Pages: 448
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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?

Final Thoughts:
There was so much wrong with this book. I don’t think I’ve hated reading something so much in my life. The characters went nowhere—yes, they flew across the world using Daniel’s mighty angel wings—but their personalities just felt flat. Luce was so overdramatic, practically unable to function whenever anybody was injured or died, regardless of whether she’d just met them a few pages ago. I guess it was meant to make her seem compassionate, but it just felt hollow. And the plot holes—oh, the plot holes. I was immensely angry at this book whenever something just didn’t make sense. There were so many moments where it was like, ‘Forget we’re all here, only Luce can do this…’.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Deadly Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock (thanks to Publisher)
• The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead (purchased)
• Rapture by Lauren Kate (purchased)
• Unrest by Michelle Harrison (thanks to Publisher)

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the two paperbacks this week. Werewolves, and body snatching…sounds fun. I preordered The Golden Lily ages ago. It was a suprise when it arrived, actually. I still haven’t read beyond the first book of the Vampire Academy series so this one will end up waiting on my shelves for quite a while before I get around to it. Rapture, on the other hand, is one I’ve been waiting to get to. I’m really hoping it brings this series to an exciting close. It’s a hit and miss series for me, but I do love angels. So what did you pick up this week?

Here are my latest reviews if you want to check them out:
Damico, Gina Croak #1, Croak
Kane, Ashlyn & James, Morgan, Hair Of The Dog

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Beast Master V1 by Kyousuke Motomi (gifted)
• Beast Master V2 by Kyousuke Motomi (gifted)
• Gravitation V9 by Maki Murakami (purchased)
• Nana V4 by Ai Yazawa (purchased)
• Nana V5 by Ai Yazawa (purchased)
• Fallen In Love by Lauren Kate (purchased)

So Manga, hey? I wasn’t planning on getting any of those this week, but I stumbled into the anime store and felt the urge to spend. Plus, my friend Brittany from Nice Girls Read Books gave me the Beast Master ones as a belated Xmas present, which brought this week’s manga total up to 5. I really need to find time to read them. I’m still on V1 of Nana at the moment. I preordered Fallen In Love back at the start of January, as I thought seeing things from the other characters POV might help with this series. I actually enjoyed the small peeks we got into the side characters in Passion.

Here are my latest reviews if you want to check them out:
Moore, Perry, Hero
Rowan, Isabelle, Ink
Smith, Cynthia Leitich Tantalize #4, Diabolical
Stolarz, Laurie Faria Touch #1, Deadly Little Secret

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

Title: Passion (Fallen #3)
Author: Lauren Kate
Published: June, 2011 by Delacorte Press
Pages: 420
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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.

Final Thoughts:
This is the book that ups the stakes, changing the series from one filled with high school angst to a time-traveling, epic love story. Okay, so that might sound a bit cheesy, but really, the route Passion takes was a lot more enjoyable for me than the first two books. I enjoyed the prison-like boarding school in Fallen, but when Torment virtually retconned itself, starting Luce all alone at another new school, that’s when I got annoyed. Thankfully, this time around, there are no schools or the politics that go along with them in sight.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current read and share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

I’m almost half way through this and I’m finding it really repetitive. I like the plot that this one’s going with, but something new really needs to happen soon.

Luce waited for his wings to unfurl. She waited for the soft thunder of their grand unfolding, opening wide and catching the air in awesome glory. She’d seen him take flight like this in the past, and every time, it struck her to her core: How desperately she loved him. But Daniel’s wings never shot out from his back.

– Passion by Lauren Kate, page 188.
Published in June, 2011 by Delacorte Press.

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Supernaturally by Kiersten White (purchased)
• Elixir by Hilary Duff (purchased)
• Stargazer by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Hourglass by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Afterlife by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Need by Carrie Jones (purchased)
• Captivate by Carrie Jones (purchased)
• Dark Heart Forever by Lee Monroe (purchased)
• Dark Heart Rising by Lee Monroe (purchased)
• Trial By Fire by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (purchased)
• Claire De Lune by Christine Johnson (purchased)
• Heist Society by Ally Carter (purchased)
• Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (purchased)
• Outside In by Maria V. Snyder (purchased)
• Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck (purchased)
• Tiger’s Quest by Colleen Houck (purchased)
• Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Passion by Lauren Kate (purchased)
• Pride by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Alpha by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Days Like This by Alison Stewart (purchased)
• The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff (purchased)

My favourite purchase this week is my Charmed Book Of Shadows, plus the lectern, I had to get that as well, otherwise the book would just sit in my cupboard. The Book was released back in ’07, but was discontinued before I got around to buying one, so when it randomly popped up in the Big W catalogue after so many years, and for half the original RRP, I had to get one. It has some of the original artwork from the book used in the tv show, plus the dvds from all eight seasons, stuck to holders on the pages. Now onto the fiction books. Looking at them all spread out like this, it makes me realise how bad my spending got this week. Some were cheap though. Heist Society was only $1.20, so I couldn’t pass it up. I’ve already read five of these books, but that still leaves heaps to read. I’ve been trying to track down Rachel Vincent’s Shifters series. While I was in Brisbane for the Lauren Kate signing on Saturday, I tried thirteen stores and only managed to come across a lone copy of Pride in one of them. Alpha, only just released here in Australia, was a lot easier to find. I’ll keep my eye out for the rest of them. I can’t wait to start Trial By Fire, I really loved the first book. I want to start Maggie Stiefvater books soon too, but Amazon shipped Linger to me before Shiver. There’s so many there, that I’m not going discuss the rest. If there’s one there you think I should get to sooner rather than later, let me know.

Here are my reviews from the past two weeks:
Davies, Jocelyn A Beautiful Dark #1, A Beautiful Dark
Kate, Lauren Fallen #1, Fallen
Kate, Lauren Fallen #2, Torment
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #3, My Soul To Keep
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #4, My Soul To Steal

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

I got up at 5:30am this morning to get ready for the three hour drive to Brisbane for the Lauren Kate Passion Tour – Brisbane Signing. Thankfully, I wasn’t the one driving. After a stop off for a Maccas breaky, Brittany (Nice Girls Read Books) and I arrived early at the shopping centre. Checking out Dymocks, we only found a couple people lined up outside, so we took off to scope out all the bookstores. Mistake. Half an hour later, a line had appeared and we ended up standing all the way outside the doors of the shopping centre for a good forty-five minutes. I’d just bought five books at the shops and had my three Lauren Kate books for the signing, so my shoulder was well and truly sore by the time we reached the front of the line.

It was actually fairly well organised and fast moving once things got going. Lauren would take your stack of books and you’d hop up on the stage with her while she signed them and get some photos with her.

While we were there, Brittany and I caught up with Melissa from Spellbound By Books again. It’s always fun to be able to catch up with other bloggers. Although, we didn’t get to check out the bookstores with her… next time.

Lauren was really nice and friendly, commenting on what good condition my personal library must be in based on how well my books were cared for 😉

I loved the vibe there, and it was fun watching all of the shoppers walk by, staring as they tried to figure out what’s going on. This was my second author signing so far, and definitely worth the trip. Although, right about now, I feel like crashing into bed for the next twelve hours. A big thanks to my little brother for driving us.