Torment

I picked up Torment because Fallen ended with Luce learning Daniel is a fallen angel and then being hidden away, and I needed to know if separation helps or harms. Lauren Kate published it with Delacorte Press in 2010, a 452 page second book in the Fallen series with ISBN 9780385739146. Luce is sent to Shoreline, a California school for Nephilim, children of angels and humans, while Daniel hunts Outcasts who want her dead. New friends, new powers, old past lives surfacing. It is moodier and slower than Fallen, with more lore and less swoon. I liked it more on reflection than while reading, which is a strange but honest verdict.

Luce opens angry in a way YA heroines were rarely allowed in 2010. She loves Daniel, survived Sword and Cross reform school, lost her friend Penn, and now Daniel parks her at Shoreline for safety and leaves to fight. She calls it protection. He calls it necessity. Both are right and both hurt. Shoreline sits on rocky coast with fog, redwoods, and windows that rattle. Students glow faintly. Teachers teach angel history alongside math. Luce shares a room with Shelby, funny and blunt, who hates Nephilim privilege and likes Luce despite herself. That roommate friction gives the book air. Shelby teases Luce about Southern manners. Luce learns to surf badly. Normal teen moments inside abnormal school keep pages turning when lore thickens.

Daniel's absence aches by design. He appears in dreams, in brief visits, in letters that say little. Luce replays his warnings. Do not trust shadows. Do not seek Announcers. She disobeys because obedience feels like erasure. Who is she if she waits. That question drives her to study shadows called Announcers that hold past lives. In Fallen they whispered. Here she learns to step closer, to see flickers of herself as other girls in other times loving Daniel and dying. Those visions are fragmentary and frightening. A girl in a ballroom. A nurse in a war. A child in a desert. Each ends with fire or fall. Luce wants whole story. Daniel fears whole story will kill her. Both want love to survive truth. Methods differ. Conflict follows.

Miles, a kind Nephilim boy who can reflect himself, becomes the book's gentle test. He likes Luce plainly, brings food, helps with homework, jokes without agenda. He is not Daniel, brooding and ancient. He is present and seventeen. Luce leans on him and feels guilty for leaning. Is friendship betrayal when love is eternal. Kate handles this without making Miles a placeholder. He has his own crush history, his own family pressure, his own ability that scares him. When he helps Luce with Announcers despite risk, it reads as brave rather than convenient. Readers who hated love triangles may still sigh here, but this one feels less like a contest and more like a question. What does presence count for against eternity. Good question. No easy answer.

Shoreline and shadows

Shoreline as setting works better than Sword and Cross because nature helps magic. Fog hides wings. Ocean covers whispers. Cliffs make falling feel near. Teachers like Francesca and Steven, a married pair split between Heaven and Hell sympathies, debate in front of students. Their marriage models disagreement without divorce, rare in YA. They love each other and back different sides. Students watch and learn that loyalty can hold tension. That lesson matters for Luce, torn between Daniel's Heaven and Cam's Hell. Cam, charming fallen angel from book one, visits with smiles and warnings. Is he friend or foe. Both, probably, depending on day. Kate keeps him ambiguous without cheating. He saves Luce once, threatens once. Trust accordingly.

Announcers, shadowy archives of past, are the book's best invention. They cling to corners, cold and humming. Most Nephilim avoid them. Luce seeks them because she is tired of being told. A scene where she and Shelby watch a past Luce laugh with Daniel in a market, then fire, made me shiver. History as haunting you can enter. The risk is real. Shadows can trap, burn, show too much. A teacher punishes Luce for trying, which only sharpens her resolve. Forbidden library tropes work because teens know that feeling. Adults hide files for your own good. You open anyway. Sometimes you learn. Sometimes you bleed. Both teach.

Dawn, another Nephilim girl, and Jasmine, her friend, widen the school beyond Luce. Dawn can see dead? Actually she remembers pasts more clearly. Jasmine grounds. Their sleepovers with popcorn and ghost stories normalize Shoreline. They paint nails while discussing Outcasts. That mix of ordinary and dire will feel familiar to anyone who did homework during family crisis. Life continues around fear. Kate respects that continuation rather than pausing plot for lore dumps. Lore arrives between bites. Good pacing choice, though lore hungry readers may want more system. How do Nephilim age. What limits Announcers. Answers come slowly, sometimes never. Accept mystery as mood. Not every magic needs manual.

Outcasts, angels who took wrong side and lost wings and eyes, hunt Luce for unclear reasons at first. They appear as storm, as blind men with razors, as voices in fog. Scary without gore. Daniel and Cam hunt them off page while Luce studies. That off page war frustrates because we hear results, not battles. A phone call. Daniel bloody. Cam late. Luce waiting. Some readers will find that distance boring. I found it true to being the protected person. Waiting is its own horror. You imagine worse than any fight. Kate makes waiting active by giving Luce research and friends. She does not just pine. She practices. That agency saves the middle from swoon stall.

Love and past lives

The past lives thread deepens here and raises stakes for the whole series. Luce learns she has lived many times, loved Daniel each time, died each time, often by fire on her seventeenth birthday. Daniel remembers all. She remembers none. That imbalance explains his distance. Loving someone who forgets you every life hurts. It also explains his control. He tries to script this life to avoid death. No Announcers. No risks. Stay at Shoreline. Luce experiences that care as cage. Who gets to decide what risks love takes. She does, she insists, even if choice kills. That insistence will divide readers. Is she brave or reckless. Both, I think. Seventeen with eternity pressing. Of course she reaches.

A Thanksgiving visit home sharpens the theme. Luce sees parents who think she is at a normal boarding school. She lies about classes, hides bruises, eats pie while thinking of wings. That domestic scene, ordinary and strained, hurt me more than any angel fight. Parents aging while children fight secret wars. I remembered lying to my own parents about college stress to spare them. Love as omission. Kate does not judge. She shows cost. Lies protect and isolate. Luce leaves home lonelier than she arrived, despite hugs. Growing up sometimes means carrying stories parents cannot hold. Sad and true.

The romance with Daniel in present stays chaste by adult standards, kissing, holding, promises, but emotions run intense. A beach scene where they meet secretly, waves loud, Daniel shaking with fear of losing her again, Luce angry at being managed, ends without resolution. No grand reunion kiss to fix. That restraint suits book two. Middle books should not resolve. They should complicate. Kate complicates by letting Luce doubt. Does Daniel love her or the pattern. Does she love him or the idea of being loved eternally. Those doubts feel mature for YA paranormal in 2010, when many heroines accepted fate. Luce questions fate while still feeling it. Good. Keep both.

What drags

At 452 pages in the Delacorte first edition, Torment is long for a middle book and it shows around page 250. Shoreline routines repeat. Class, dining hall, Announcer attempt, Daniel call, repeat. If you want Fallen's gothic murder mystery pace, this coastal school slow burn may tire. I skimmed two history lessons. Trimming fifty pages would help. The lore also withholds a lot for books three and four. Who made Outcasts. What breaks the curse. Answers teased but deferred. Patient readers will trust. Impatient may feel strung along. Know yourself before starting. This is bridge, not destination.

Miles as rival may also frustrate Team Daniel readers. He is too nice to hate and too present to dismiss. Some will see him as delay tactic. I saw him as necessary contrast. Without Miles, Daniel's eternity looks only romantic. With Miles, it looks costly. Presence matters. That lesson needs a living boy, not just idea. Still, the triangle takes pages from Shelby and Dawn who deserve more. Friendships shine when given room. Romance crowds them here. A better balance would help. Kate improves this in later books. Here, notice friends and forgive crowding.

The prose leans purple in places. Shadows like spilled ink. Kisses like drowning. Fog as breath. If lush romance annoys you, this will grate. I mostly enjoyed because setting earns it. Coast fog invites metaphor. Just do not expect spare style. This is velvet, not denim. Accept texture or pick another series. No shame in taste. I like velvet in winter. You might prefer denim year round.

Who it is for

Read it if you finished Fallen and need next, if you like angel lore with boarding school coziness, if you like heroines who disobey for knowledge. It is Fallen book two, between Fallen and Passion, with Fallen in Love stories around. Content includes violence, death, grief, kissing, language. No graphic sex. Deaths occur off page more than on. Suitable for ages twelve and up who handled book one, with care for loss and longing.

Facts to cite are straightforward. First published September 28, 2010 by Delacorte Press. First hardcover runs 452 pages with ISBN 9780385739146. Author Lauren Kate wrote it as second of five Fallen novels. Series Fallen order two. Tags that fit are fantasy, young adult, angels, romance, boarding school.

I closed it restless rather than satisfied, which is correct for a middle. Luce chooses to seek Announcers despite warnings, Daniel chooses to let her a little despite fear, Miles chooses to help despite crush. Three imperfect choices toward truth over safety. The last chapters, with Outcasts closing and a choice to leave Shoreline, promise movement. I will follow into Passion. Bring a jacket. Fog is cold. Shadows hum. Do not listen alone if you scare easily. Bring Shelby. She will joke and hold your hand anyway.

Waiting as plot

What I kept thinking about after was waiting. Luce waits for Daniel calls. Waits for Announcers to clear. Waits for teachers to explain. Waiting is most of book two, which annoyed me at page 180 and impressed me later. Kate makes waiting active by filling it with practice. Luce learns to shield, to surf, to study. She does not just pine by windows, though she does some of that too. She prepares. That portrayal respects teens who wait a lot, for parents to come home, for doctors to call, for grades to post. Waiting is not empty. It is work without applause. Name it as work. The 452 page Delacorte edition with ISBN 9780385739146 honors that work by giving it pages rather than skipping to battles. Battles come. Waiting first. Both matter.

Shelby's friendship deserves more credit than plot gives. She teases Luce about Southern stiffness, lends clothes, covers absences, then follows into danger without angelic powers. No wings. Just loyalty. When Luce thanks her, Shelby jokes to deflect. That deflection is familiar. Friends who help and hide needing thanks. I thought about my own college roommate who drove me to hospitals without comment. I never thanked well. This book prompted a text. Thanks for rides. She replied with humor. Circles mend. Shelby will not get a spin off, but she holds the book's human center while angels debate. Remember humans in angel stories. They choose without eternity to cushion. Braver, in a way. Choose like Shelby. Show up without powers.

Reading lore slowly

If the angel system confuses you, you are not alone. Nephilim, Outcasts, Announcers, scales, truces. Kate parcels terms across books rather than dumping. Keep a simple list as you read. Nephilim equals angel human kids with gifts. Outcasts equals eyeless ex angels hunting Luce. Announcers equals shadows holding past. That trio carries most scenes. Other terms can wait. Do not memorize hierarchies yet. Passion explains more. Rapture most. Torment is bridge that teaches how to learn, not what to know. How to ask teachers hard questions. How to test shadows safely with friends near. Method over facts. That method will serve in later books when facts flood. Learn to study now. The test comes later. Luce learns. So can you. Bring notebook. Shelby would. She takes notes in margins and doodles wings with sneakers. Copy her. Draw while learning. It helps memory more than highlighting. Trust doodles.