Book Review: The Fallen (Nine Lives of Chloe King #1) by Celia Thomson

Title: The Fallen (Nine Lives of Chloe King #1)
Author: Celia Thomson
Pages: 256
Publication: May 25, 2004
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Summary taken from goodreads: 

Chloe King is a normal girl. She goes to class (most of the time), fights with her mom, and crushes on a boy…or two. But around her sixteenth birthday, Chloe finds that perhaps she isn't so normal after all. There’s the heightened night vision, the super fast reflexes – oh, and the claws. 

As she discovers who she is – and where she comes from – it is clear she is not alone. And someone is trying to get her. 

Chloe has nine lives. But will nine be enough?

2 STARS - IT WAS OKAY

MY REVIEW:

I watched the tv show a a few years ago and thought that it was interesting enough, even with the stilted acting. I heard the the books were very different from the show and was pretty good. 

In all honesty, after reading THE FALLEN, I think that they are both equal in mediocrity. 

The book could have been pretty good, but it just fell flat and uninteresting. The action was okay, and the writing was suspenseful enough, but the author didn't even explain anything important, like why she suddenly had those powers and who the villains are, and I can understand that it's supposed to be answered in the sequel. Because there was nothing concretely answered, and since the book seemed to rely on the love triangle to keep readers interested in the next book, I really don't care to continue this trilogy.

Also, was it really necessary to have a love triangle. I would have been totally fine with her just going after a bunch of guys, having fun, like how it seemed in the beginning, but once she started waffling over Brian and Alyec, I grew bored. She liked and disliked some aspects of each guy and couldn't seem to make up her mind on either. If she couldn't compromise with one guy, why couldn't she just try to find someone else instead that she liked overall? Why was she so desperate to get a boyfriend? Because her best friends were going out?

Also, the whole best friends getting together and leaving her hanging dynamic serves well for the plot, but really, couldn't she just call Amy and tell her what's up? Or tell Amy her real feelings for being basically abandoned instead of bottling it up? Aren't best friends supposed to be able to tell each other anything?

I wished that the characters were more fleshed out. I don't even think that Chloe was that interesting since she turned boy crazy after she turned 16 and was going on dates with Brian and Alyec in between surviving assassination attempts and learning her powers. Amy and Paul were never really mentioned besides being so wrapped up into each other. The love interests were pretty vague in an attempt to appear mysterious, I suppose. Her mom was an interesting character though. 

But yeah, even though the trilogy is relatively short in terms of pages, I can't bring myself to read the next two books after giving both the first book and tv show a shot.