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    The Children's Book Review

    Lauren Kate, Author of Bestelling YA Book, Fallen: Why Angels?

    Bianca SchulzeBy Bianca Schulze4 Mins Read Author Interviews
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    By Lauren Kate, for The Children’s Book Review
    Published: January 15, 2010

    Lauren Kate looking at the cameraWhy angels? More than any other question I’ve been asked since I started writing Fallen, this is what people want to know. In an age where we’ve actually colloquialized the phrase “vampire-saturation,” where even Anne Rice is crossing over to the light side, and where—yes, I know—there’s no shortage of other angel books being published, it does feel important to trace back to the exact moment that I chose to plunge myself into the Miltonic fray.I’ve never encountered an angel in my every day life—though I’d consider myself open to it (I say this after visiting Savannah, where I learned 80% of the residents are “open” to encountering a ghost). Going into this project, what I knew about angels started and ended with a very basic collective social construct: flawless features, fluffy wings, good intentions, etc. And although it’s commercially compelling, I’m not interested in making a case for why angels are the new vampires.

    I was just a grad student who happened to write a lot of love stories, auditing a class about reading the Bible as a narrative text. And one day, flipping through the Book of Genesis, lightening struck. I came across a biblical reference to a group of angels who were kicked out of heaven because they lusted after mortal women. I started thinking about what it would be like to be normal girl—suddenly the object of an angel’s affection. What kinds of thrills and challenges would spring from such an unusual match? And what would her very over-protective parents think?? When my mind started spinning around this mortal girl’s character, I had the feeling her love story had the power to be bigger, weightier, and with a lot more at stake than any romance—or really any thing—I’d ever written before.

    I was a Jewish kid with a Catholic father, raised in a Baptist part of Texas, so I’ve grown up to have a pretty strong theological fascination, as well as an open interest in a wide range of religious narratives. While in no way a religious book, Fallen does have a strong theological base. The narratives and history surrounding the angels and demons are very compelling to me, but the ways in which I’ve included them in Fallen go back further than the Bible. They’re pre-Christian, even pre-Torah. My research took me back as far as the earliest known dualistic religion, Zoroastrianism, where I was intrigued to find an unspeakable interdependence between good and evil.

    Thinking about heaven and hell in almost yin and yang terms was a whacky but important part of gearing up to write this book. I didn’t realize how deeply invested in this story I was until one day in the check out line at the public library: I was holding out a stack of books with titles like Satan Part One, Satan Part Two, The Devil in the Modern World, Lucifer’s Quest, and so on—and let’s just say I was making the librarian pretty nervous. You could see her brow unfurrow as she scanned a few more innocuously titled Dictionary of Angels type-books in the bottom of my pile.

    When I first started doing interviews for Fallen, I tended to shy away from the tricky what-are-you-trying-to-do-with-religion question. The truth is, I suppose I’m trying to do a bit of justice to millennia worth of history, narrative, and lore without hinging Luce’s story too closely on any one faith. I’m trying to incorporate some of the great mysteries and mythologies of a variety of religions, and to push myself to reconsider preconceived notions of what is “good” and what is “evil.” Maybe some of my readers will join me in this. But for those who might not find the god brothers Mazda and Ahriman, the history of the Nephilim, or how Milton altered our view of Satan quite as fascinating as I do (impossible!), there’s always that forbidden love story to fall back on.

    Add this book to your collection: Fallen

    Lauren Kate’s next stop on her blog tour is at Bitten By Books. For more about Lauren Kate and other Young Adult books published by Random House, visit http://www.teenreads.com/.

    What to Read Next:

    1. That’s a wrap: Author and Illustrator Interviews of 2009
    2. Jane Yolen: Constantly Inventing
    3. Author & Illustrator Interview: Carin Berger
    4. How the Heck Did You Come Up with That?

    *Disclosure: Please note that this post may contain affiliate links that share some commission. Rest assured that these will not affect the cost of any products and services promoted here. Our team always provides their authentic opinion in all content published on this site.

    Angels Lauren Kate
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    Bianca Schulze
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    Bianca Schulze is the founder of The Children’s Book Review. She is a reader, reviewer, mother and children’s book lover. She also has a decade’s worth of experience working with children in the great outdoors. Combined with her love of books and experience as a children’s specialist bookseller, the goal is to share her passion for children’s literature to grow readers. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, she now lives with her husband and three children near Boulder, Colorado.

    4 Comments

    1. eLenh on August 13, 2010 7:07 am

      exist also other will part of this book?

      Reply
      • Bianca Schulze on August 13, 2010 10:36 am

        Torment (Book 2) releases on September 28. You can pre-order a copy here: http://astore.amazon.com/thechisboorev-20/detail/0385739141

        Reply
    2. Jeff on November 11, 2012 7:41 pm

      Flirting with the devil and putting false religious thoughts and information into the minds of children is wrong! These books should come with “Parental Guidance” warnings. If your child is reading one like mine was, I suggest you do a little more research into the books and this author. Bad News!

      Reply
      • Dina on August 14, 2017 8:10 am

        There is more than one religion in the world, even the Bible acknowlegdes that. A child should learn fiction from reality. If a child knows a book is fiction, what is the harm? Teach them to recognize what is true and what is fantasy, because storybooks are everywhere, even when they grow up. Reading fairytales did not make me believe eggs and (dead) horses could talk or that stone churches could move like boats, nor my siblings.
        Also I’d like to applaud the author for the energy she’d put into research. Research makes a good story great!

        Reply
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