Fallen may be about fallen angels—a pretty Judeo-Christian kind of thing—but Lauren Kate turns dogma on its head by giving us a protagonist who just keeps coming back again and again, from one life to the next. The point of all this reincarnation seems to be that Luce and Daniel, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, are being given the chance over and over to do things right. But will they succeed? And how can they figure out what it is they have to do to right the world and be together forever?
Questions About Reincarnation
- Luce has to be reincarnated exactly as she is, with her religion still intact. But it's not always within her control—for example, in this lifetime, she was never baptized. Still, why is it that she's always reincarnated as herself and not as some other person? Does it even count as reincarnation then?
- Is the guilt that Luce feels for the deaths of Trevor and Todd authentic? Or is she more concerned with how these deaths affect her and her desires? How does Daniel's acknowledgement that she's not guilty change her perspective?
- For someone who doesn't have any ghosts from the past haunting her, how does Penn handle herself at Sword & Cross? Does using her status as an assistant help her fit in more, since she can dig up dirt on people? How well-liked is she?