Audio Length: 10 hours and 59 min., Release Date: 11/12/2009
Narrator: Justine Eyre
Format: Unabridged ** spoiler alert ** This book really surprised me with its plot and intrigue. I was afraid to pick it up after putting down Hush Hush because I couldn't take "yet another teen angst love triangle involving the Supernatural....AGAIN". I have a guilty pleasure for boarding school novels and this one does not disappoint. I do get a little disappointed at how much Luce loses herself in her infatuation for Daniel and how much she comes to depend on him. Frankly she becomes a fairly incompetent character who is left in the dark on most of the plot points, as is the reader. Lauren Kate definitely leaves the ending open to a trilogy and I now want to finish the series to see how it ends. And I know this is getting nit picky but fail on Lauren Kate's part for making the librarian a villain. I loved the secondary characters including Daniel's arch nemesis and the "dark to his light" so to speak, Cam, and Luce's fast friend who reminds me of a fairy raver friend of mine, Ariadne.
I do love when I catch mistakes in audio books, they always make me chuckle.I recall when I was listening to the audio book of Libba Bray's Rebel Angels I heard the author stop reading and say to herself how she was going to re-read the character's last sentence in a more convincing manner, i.e. less warbling. In the case of this audio book it was less obvious. The narrator has chosen one way to pronounce a character's name and then a few chapters later completely pronounced it in a different way...twice.
The next book in the series is Torment, where Luce is transported to another boarding school where she learns more about her past lives and begins to distrust that her beloved, Daniel is telling her the whole truth.
I've had a good experience reading Maggie Stiefvater's "The Wolves of Mercy Falls" series. The love between Sam and Grace is loving without being too lovesick. Their comfortableness with one another puts the reader at ease and makes them invested in their star crossed lovers plot. The two also read to each other in a corner bookstore loft, which to me is the ideal romantic situation. I may end up buying them. The visceral description of werewolves in winter makes it a good December read. I have yet to catch up with the final book, Forever. [images courtesy of goodreads]
Oh...and just for the heck of it, here are links to the songs referenced in the title:
For Falling - Deine Lakaien
For Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
