Luce Price never believed in fallen angels, until she fell in love with one. The novel Torment by Lauren Kate is the second novel in the Fallen series. When she met her boyfriend Daniel, she knew it was love at first sight. She is shocked when she finds out that he is an angel. He tells her that she has had thousands of past lives, but Luce does not remember a single one. Daniel leaves her at a school called Shoreline, because he has to protect her from the people who want her dead. Luce is determined to find out everything about her past, and ends up making a decision that changes her life forever.
Luce is tall and beautiful. According to the first book, she has long black hair and snow white skin. She is very reckless in the book, and is quick to defend herself. She is outspoken and rebellious, and is always getting in fights with Daniel. She dyes her hair blonde because she wants a fresh start at school. “Well I’m the one who dyed it, Daniel. So, technically, it is me. Maybe not the ‘me’ you want me to be-” (Kate 116). She is friendly and makes a lot of new friends at Shoreline. She is always sneaking off campus with her friends Shelby and Miles. She learns a lot about herself and her past thanks to her friend Shelby.
With Shelby’s help, Luce learns how to summon and open shadows. When she opens the shadows, Luce can see something from her past. One time, when she opens the shadow she sees a woman working at a Las Vegas casino. She discovers that the woman was her sister from one of her past lives. She goes with Shelby and her other friend Miles to find this woman. When they get to the casino, she sees the woman immediately. She sees that the woman’s name is Vera. Vera tries to kick them out, and she accidently brushes against Luce. “The weird shock blinded Luce. She sucked in her breath. She looked deep into Vera’s wide hazel eyes. And she saw everything” (300). She saw all the memories that she had with Vera. Vera realizes who Luce is and says, “It’s you. But it can’t be” (302). Luce discovers that she had a story with each of her past lives, and that she left so many people behind when she fell in love with Daniel.
In the end of the book, Luce goes home with Miles, Shelby, Cam, Arriane, Roland, and Daniel to celebrate Thanksgiving. When she gets there, everything was just like she remembered it. When she sees her parents, she remembers what happened with Vera, and promises herself that she won’t do the same thing to them. All of a sudden, a bunch of angels who want to kill Luce shows up in her backyard. There is a great battle, and Miles saves Luce’s life. Luce knows she can no longer stay in this lifetime. “Time to go,” Luce tells herself as she opens a shadow (pg.444). When Daniel asks her where she is going she turns back once and says, “Guess I’ll just have to figure it out” (445). She takes a deep breath and jumps into the shadow, completely unsure of where she is going. Before, Luce would have looked for Daniel to tell her what to do, but she made this decision on her own. She only knows she needs to get away.
Luce changes in many ways throughout the book. She learns to open shadows, and she makes many new friends. She is more carefree when Daniel isn’t with her, and she learns that she does not have to do everything Daniel says. She becomes her own person. Shoreline teaches her how to deal with angels, and she learns about herself and her past. Luce also realizes the pain that the people who lived with her before went through. She says to Shelby, “No. Wait- you mean, I’ve had totally different parents in each of my past lives? I thought Harry and Doreen… I just assumed they would have been with me the whole time” (175). She knows she lived multiple lives, but she didn’t realize that each one was with totally different people. Luce never thought about all the people she hurt when she died, until she saw part of Vera’s memory of the night she died. “Vera’s scream echoed through the blue night, her frozen look of agony all that Luce could see”(pg. 302). Luce becomes more loving toward her parents because she still does not know if she is going to die again. Luce’s whole attitude toward life changes. She realizes when she sees the look on Vera’s face that Daniel goes through the same agony every time he has to watch her die. She makes the most reckless decision of her life by jumping into the shadow. She learns that she should make the best of her life while she has it, and not take anything for granted.
Luce’s transformation teaches the reader to accept changes in life and adjust to them. As Luce learns, change can be a good thing. The author is also trying to say that life can be tough, but you have to be able to control your own life. Throughout the book, Daniel constantly tells Luce what to do. Luce finally realizes that she is in charge of her own life, and that she can do what she wants to do. She becomes happier after she becomes her own person. Readers can learn that through everything, love always remains and will keep you strong. Even though Luce and Daniel fight, they always make up and become even closer. With the help of her friend Shelby, Luce learns that what happened in her past should stay there, and she should not put the people she used to love through the pain of seeing her all over again. Luce dives into her past, ready for anything.
Works Cited
Kate, Lauren. Torment: a Fallen Novel. New York: Delacorte, 2010. Print.
google images
No comments:
Post a Comment