Fallen Book Discussion (Week 2)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012


Hey, people from Earth and other people who are not from here, for the next 12 weeks we will be giving you the awesomeness that is Fallen by Lauren Kate.  Be sure to show up, because we are giving away some great stuff, check it out HERE.  Just a side note, I will be asking two questions after each discussion post.  Be sure to follow the discussion and don’t be scared to join in on our discussion/ questions.  Those who entered the contest will receive extra entries for answering a question.  Every week on Tuesday, we will discuss two chapters of the book, tell you about the plot, and other random bits of spicy goodness that you should definitely know about (all relating to Fallen).  Just for your curiosity: helping me out with this discussion are two of my best friends, Jackie/ the Doctor (who is in blue typeface) and Emma/ Mirror Girl (who is in green typeface).  I, Gina/ Bookish Blonde, am in the black typeface and quotes from the book, Fallen by Lauren Kate, are in red typeface.  If you missed a post and want to check out the schedule, go HERE.  Come and join us in our quest of discussing FALLEN.

TWO: FIT TO BE TIED

New girl, Luce goes to her new class.  Let the soul-sucking begin.  Before classes start, Cam comes over and flirts with Luce.  Naturally, Luce is already trying to figure out more about this god-like green-eyed guy even though she has only been at the school for not even a day.
“Daniel?  Cam?  She’d been at this school for what, forty-five minutes?—and her mind was already juggling two different guys.” –p. 45
Cam is gorgeous, but a major player obviously.  He gave Luce a guitar pick that had the number of his room number on it.  That is basically screaming that the picks are his own personal business cards.  Get it, business?  Ohh la-la!  Business?!! I wonder what that could possibly be? :O But, their flirting session gets cut off when the late bell sounds and the teacher, Mr. Cole, walks in.  Mr. Cole is the soul-sucker of the day.  He seems so boring and apparently, Luce has the first three hours of school with this guy.  But to get through those hours, Arriane starts throwing paper airplanes.  I’m sure everyone can see those things flying through the air, because I doubt anyone is paying much attention to Mr. Cole. 
Oh, and until you’re confident about your aim, you might not want to fly any Daniel-related messages my way.  Dude behind you is famous on the football field for his interceptions.” –p. 49
Roland, Daniel’s friend with dreadlocks, who reminds me of some surfer boy, sits behind her.  Unfortunately for Luce, she gets caught by Mr. Cole (who reminds me of one of my old fart teachers whom I did not like) for spreading notes.  Poor Luce.  She can’t even get through the whole class without getting in trouble with Doomful Dragon (yes, that is my new name for him).  Mr. Cole is not that bad when you get to know him.  But he still may be a soul-sucker, no matter what he does.  After a soul-draining three hours later, she finally gets to go to yummy, scrumptious lunch (for so we hope).  While waiting on line for her food (she is a veggie eater by the way) she is looking around for the delicious Daniel and Cam (code for eye-candy maybe?).  She can only find Daniel, who looks extremely interested in what he is eating. 
“Scratch that, he looked like someone pretending to be intensely focused on chewing his hamburger.” –p. 52
Hope she got enough eye-candy with only him because before she can get lunch, she steps back and into Molly.  So, Monstrous Molly, as lovely as she sounds, gets upset because Luce knocks Molly’s lunch from her.  Luce gets the food all over her and tries to apologize to Molly.  Arriane tries to stand up for her, when she punches Molly in the face.  Arriane’s wristband goes off and starts shocking her.  Is that even allowed?  That punishment is just wrong, especially because Molly deserved it. 
‘”Scared ya, did I?  Aw, that’s sweet.  Don’t worry, the shocks won’t kill me,” she whispered.  “They only make me stronger. …”’ –p.54
Randy shows up in all her manly *man-lady* atmosphere and she breaks it up and gives the three of them detention.  In the cemetery, of all places!!  Arriane goes to the nurse with Randy, leaving Luce alone.  With Molly.  Molly proceeds to smoosh her meatloaf into Luce’s hair (that’ll be fun to clean out).  As Luce looks around to see who saw she realizes that everyone did, including Daniel, who was just shaking his head.  I would lay down and die if this happened to me especially in front of a guy I liked.  Does she even like him?  I mean, she only has this weird pull or attraction for him, but she doesn’t even know the guy so I am QUITE certain that she doesn’t like him.  Attraction is the key word in your sentence though, and just saying, in some previous novels I have read, when some girl is pulled towards a guy like, Bella with Edward and/or Jacob from Twilight that usually there is more than meets the eye.  Well, of course, there is more to that than meets the eye, I would know, I’ve read this series before.  Alas, I have not, but I’m just saying this sounds like the attraction between the guy and girl from the prologue…so there is a possibility that she may like him.  But Luce must be braver than me because she tries to leave there instead of freezing and be stuck in a fetal position like I would have.  This just isn’t Luce’s day.  No, it’s not. 
“She was stuck here, and a pair of towering metal gates separated her from the world outside Sword & Cross.  Besides, even if she’d had a way out… where was she going to go?” –p. 57
Luce goes into the bathroom… I can almost smell the food from her hair.  EWWW!  Luce tries to start cleaning off her shirt and hair when another girl walks into the bathroom.  She asks Luce what happened and okay, shouldn’t everyone know by now, didn’t everyone see?  She was kinda weird though, she had like layers and layers of shirts but she was trying to help Luce out by giving her one.  And her name is a mouthful, but I like her even though she has access to everyone’s file in the office which does make her a little intimidating. 
‘”I’m Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood.  You can call me Penn.”’ –p. 60
Penn helps her out by bringing Luce shampoo and cleans her hair for her.  Penn is the only one here who seems even a little bit normal.  Even though she does seem normal, I am a little skeptical just because of the students that go to this school.  I know Penn only goes there because of her dad, the former groundskeeper, being in the school’s cemetery and all but, I would just be cautious about anyone and everyone here if I were Luce.  Sword and Cross school is not a place where you would want to get on anyone’s bad side. 
“Penn looped her arm through Luce’s and steered her out of the bathroom.  “Just stay on my good side and no one gets hurt.”’ –p. 64
THREE: DRAWING DARK

After her thrilling day of classes, Luce gets to finally bring her bag to her dorm room.  Okay just saying, Luce has already been looking at two guys but she hasn’t even moved in yet?   Even I wasn’t that quick with looking for cute guys when I started going to college.  On move-in day, I moved in and then made friends later.  Ha, Luce definitely has her own way of things.  She doesn’t get very far with her unpacking, before her thoughts turn dark.  Like how her new nickname is Meat Loaf!  I would be so mad if people were calling me Meat Loaf!  I wouldn’t mind being called Meat Loaf: I would definitely dream about Paradise by the Dashboard Lights with Daniel.  She starts thinking about Trevor, a guy who she didn’t really know.
“She hadn’t known Trevor any more than she knew… well, Cam.” –p. 69
From this point, she describes the short time she spent with him on the night of the accident.  I felt so bad for her because they were just on a walk when the shadows come and later Trevor is found dead and she is blamed.  Before her thoughts get too sad, there’s a knock to do the door.  But no one is there.  Dun-dun DUN!  In the knocker’s wake, there is a paper airplane.  I wonder who this is from.  Arriane made Luce promise to swing by to her dorm that night so Luce decides to follow the plane’s direction. 
“Looking down the empty hallway, Luce wondered about following the cryptic arrow.” –p. 70
It leads her to Arriane’s door.  Reds!  Which were near Roland’s door anyway (across from Arriane’s), but you have to wonder if Roland had somehow jacked into the surveillance camera to use it for his personal use.  So that maybe Roland knows that Luce is outside his door right now.  Oh, that’s true…I hope he isn’t because that is just creepy and these people already have mental issues going on here and I would not want people controlling cameras too, that is just wrong!  But Roland does have a way with things, because earlier in the book, Arriane does mention that Roland can get you ANYTHING you want.  Like he has some sort of connections, so you just have to wonder if he is a little more sneaky than he appears with his harmless dreadlocks.  Which makes him all the more creepy!  Luce turns to look at Arriane’s door which is covered with bumper stickers, that are just her style.
“Luce laughed under her breath as she imagined Arriane collecting the bumper stickers indiscriminately (MEAN PEOPLE RULE…MY DAUGHTER IS A F STUDENT AT SWORD & CROSS…VOTE NO ON PROP 666), then slapping them with a haphazard—but committed—focus on her turf.” –p. 71
I liked them because they were just funny and they even made Luce giggle.  Luce then sees a paper airplane on Arriane’s door saying that she had to make up a quiz and couldn’t hang out with Luce till later.  After reading the note, she hears a door open.  Roland appears and Luce seems to desire to see behind the door, hoping for Daniel but no one is there.  I like Roland; he’s cool, despite his may-be-or-not camera above his door, he still seems alright to me.  He plays her a tune on his harmonica and acts like he wants to tell her something but isn’t going to.   Luce gets embarrassed by being all nosy and lies about heading in this direction to go to the library.  But, as Luce would have it, Roland tells her she was heading in the wrong direction and tells her that she might find it worthwhile to go to the Special Collection section.  Okay, Roland seems nice and doesn’t try to brush her off, so I give him a thumbs up!  For now.  Luce turns to go into the library, which is connected to their dorms, which I think should be a requirement for all colleges or reform schools to have because that is awesome!  I wish my library was connected to my dorm!  Yeah, it would help during finals week. 
“First Arriane’s note had been snappy and sarcastic, then she’d had a non-awkward encounter with Roland Sparks; plus she really did want to check out the library.  Things were looking up.” –p. 73
Luce walks in the library and meets Miss Sophia, the librarian and also teacher of some religion class that Luce is taking tomorrow.  Sophia Bliss, well, isn’t that an ironic name.  Yeah, I know especially for this decrepit hole of a school.  Sophia has a bright positive attitude (wow, not everyone is a meanie butt here) and points Luce in the direction of the Special Collections section.  Well, well, well.  Guess who Luce finds there?  Daniel.  I should have expected this from Roland.  Somehow Roland the creep must have known Luce took a fondness of Daniel.  Thanks Roland.  You are a nasty-camera probing-creep.  Well that is open for discussion, because even I would think that the Special Collections section is awesome even without Daniel there.  Roland could have not known that Daniel was there.  Just because there are friends, doesn’t mean that he knows where he is every minute of the day.  Anyway, Daniel is sketching something, while looking outside the window.  Luce has a strange feeling that it is her that he is sketching.  Wow, self-absorbed much? 
“As she watched the slight movement of his body as he sketched, Luce’s insides felt like they were burning, like she’d swallowed something hot.  She couldn’t figure out why… she had this wild premonition that Daniel was drawing her.” –p. 77
Okay, I can see that maybe Roland didn’t know he was there, but think about it the section is called Special Collections and that’s where Daniel was…and Roland happened to lead Luce in that direction? Okay, coincidence? I think not.  Maybe Roland was just trying to push the relationship closer.  He definitely had no control over what Daniel did.  Daniel was sketching a landscape outside and looks back only to see Luce.  Probably the last person he had wanted in the world.  Hmm…I’m not so sure…but anyway Daniel seems to not want Luce around but since the shadows came back when she entered that section, Luce only feels safe near Daniel.  Daniel seems intent on getting away from Luce and even leaves so that he can avoid her.  Geez!  Luce didn’t even do anything to the guy (that we know of) and yet he has already flipped her the bird and left the room to get away from her, he has some major hating issues.  Hating!  Ha.  You know the boys who are only mean to you, like you that much more.  (I’m just kidding, I don’t really think that.)  Haha.  Daniel just makes her eat his dust and claims that he went to the section to get away of everything.  Okay, I can see that but even my guy didn’t hate on me but, you do have a point.  Like in Hey Arnold with Helga liking Arnold but treating him like poop.  Why do people do that? I don’t know…guys are so confusing!  Well now that Daniel has left her there, I hope the shadows don’t get her.
“She shivered in the chill of their wake, and for a long time after that, stood in the collections area, touching her shoulder where Daniel had, feeling the heat cool down.” –p. 80

So, what did you think?

If you were a vegetarian, like Luce, would you become a meat-lover so you could eat up Daniel?
Do you think that Roland knew that Daniel was there in the Special Collections section of the library when he told Luce about it?


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6 comments

  1. YES! I would do whatever is necessary to meet Daniel!!

    I have read the whole series, but haven't read the first book in a while, so this is fun!

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  2. This is where I admit that I haven't read these books and don't care to. I did like the first couple of teasers, though - they sound interesting.

    Thanks for visiting my blog today!

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  3. Ohhh, I just bought this book not too long ago! I can't wait to read it! I hope I love it so I can buy the rest of them. Such beautiful covers.

    Thank you for stopping by my blog! I appreciate it!

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  4. I'm still angry at Daniel flipping the bird...unworthy of my attentions with that move.

    I also got the impression that Daniel had recently been with Roland, so Roland knew where he was heading and where one might usually find him. I thought that Daniel was going to be drawing her past persona as well, not the landscape.

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  5. Okay, thank you CJM, you see my point! Gina here didn't believe me, but I'm glad you see my point!

    Now as switching from a vegetarian to "meat-lover", Daniel sounds cute, so I would probably switch, just to try a new flavor ;)

    And, as I agreed with CJM above, yea, I'm sure Roland knew. Roland is still a camera-probing-creep to me. Especially because the section was called Special Collections, I really don't think the library named it that just to be cool, I think this was PURPOSELY out there to make a point about WHO would be there. Oh Roland....you are such a creep, now aren't you! ...Well that or he is trying to play matchmaker....nope, that still creepy!

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  6. Of course, Daniel is total hotness.

    As for Roland, yes he knew, that's why he pointed her in that direction. He wants her to discover the mystery behind Daniel.

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