Okay, so, the thing is that I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book - it's not like I was waiting on tenterhooks for it (in fact, I don't think anybody asked for it, just like nobody asked for an Entourage movie or a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman) but this series is so nostalgic to me.
I first read Fallen in early 2010, when I was 15. HA! Now you're all doing the math. I'm now in my early 20s and while the series is long since behind me, it holds a weird place in my heart: I was never one of those people who shrieked like a harpy over Twilight, so it was this series that was actually my gateway into YA. And my gateway into Goodreads. And to be honest, it was important to me at that weird mid-adolescent phase, when I was going through an extremely hard time personally. I bought it at the airport when I was embarking on a journey that would eventually end up being a huge mistake, and would cost me dearly in adulthood. It was a journey that Fallen accompanied me on, and I don't know, guys. As an adult, the covers have been ripped off it: Luce has the personality of a single kidney bean and Daniel should be, I don't know, in a cell somewhere, learning mindfulness and the virtues of self-awareness. They're a pair of intolerable morons, but when I was 15 and struggling to get out of bed in the morning, feeling like I wanted to run away from my home, they spoke to me. What say that about the power of YA?
It was for the sake of this nostalgia that I picked up Unforgiven. And I think it was also for the sake of that same nostalgia that I really enjoyed it. I mean, sure, I could have done without the intermittent comments about how pure and selfless and true Daniel and Luce's love is, but I always liked Cam. I really did. He had some semblance of a personality. I sort of identified with him, and I identified with Arriane too, which is why I'm seriously glad she makes a cameo. Lilith was also a really decent character, but I have my reservations, because when the timeline jumps back to Canaan, where Cam and Lilith met, that's when we know it's a Lauren Kate book. I feel like Lauren Kate's hallmark always has been and always will be the swill of instalove.
We saw it with Luce and Daniel, two angels in heaven who fell in love after exchanging no more than five contentless words, and that love was apparently then strong enough to justify 6000 years of Luce's suffering and Daniel irresponsibly killing her (he did kill her. The cameo in this book proves it. He fucking knew what would happen when he kissed her, and he fucking did it anyway, the wank). Similarly, Lilith and Cam have one conversation and suddenly they're in love, and it's enough to make Lilith kill herself when he leaves her. This is smartly sidestepped by Word of God assuring is that it was actually Lucifer who drove Lilith to do it, but still, this absolutely absurd obsession the author has with instant and death-defying love is so...weird.
(Also, the reasoning for them breaking up in the first place was dumb as shit.)
The best thing about this book was the awesome word building, because it genuinely creeped me out. It was sharp, inventive, and brilliantly surreal, even though Kate has this awful habit of starting a scene without establishing setting, so each character involved in X conversation is just a disembodied voice until eventually it's revealed that they're in the cafeteria or by Rattlesnake Creek. Kiera Cass does this too, and it's so fucking annoying.
I loved the side characters too though, and even the whole Mean Girl trope ended up being subverted. The musical element managed to be cool and unique, not cheesy, and I loved Lucifer, as I always did. He made the last two books in the original series for me.
But oy vey, the ending! WHAT WAS UP WITH THE ENDING? I hated it, and now I'm thinking about it, and it's still making me huff with disappointment. It was so rushed, and because it was so rushed, the emotional impact was completely lost. There was also a really weird sense of space, and it comes back to this problem Kate has with properly establishing a backdrop for character interactions. I couldn't picture it all in my head because the movements and the physical space and the configuration of the characters didn't make sense. The whole thing didn't make sense, and after 3000 years of hatred and bad blood, Lilith and Cam reconcile in the space of one page. What the bloody hell is this? And at the end there's no clear indication of whether or not they're even free of Lucifer's hells, because they're just left sitting in Limbo. Like, are they mortal now? Do they get to go back to Earth? Is Lilith going to be resurrected? What's going to happen from here? It was such an annoying non-resolution.
Basically, this book was what it was: a Lauren Kate novel. Sugary, unhealthy, highly consumable, like chocolate churros. Too much and it makes you feel sick, but it's a very particular flavour. Come back to it in a few years' time and boy, will that nostalgia floor you.