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Reading this book was like walking through fog, or to pull description from the book, with black shadows blocking my view of everything, only it's not the black shadows that got in my way but the MC, Luce, and the author, Kate. I have no idea what the school looked like (no more that a glimpse of this and that) or what the characters were like (same thing, just glimpses that don't add up to anything) or even what was going on in any of the action scenes because a) Luce doesn't notice anything except for the guys she's obsessed with and b) Kate wants to keep her readers in suspense so she makes sure not to tell you anything worth telling. I know sexual tension is the driving force in paranormal romances, but the plots have to at least make sense, as do the settings. This reform school with cameras everywhere was lacking in adult supervision even for a normal boarding school level. I wasn't ever satisfied with an explanation why Luce, present at the scene of a tragic accident, needed to be at reform school in the first place.

Luce makes sure to tell us she's a 4.0 student, brilliant at everything, and then proceeds to be the most dim-witted narrator I have ever read. As annoying as she was, the comment that bugged me the most was actually that as a swimmer she knew butterfly as the fastest stroke. Anyone who's been in a pool knows it's freestyle. That's why it's called freestyle: you can swim any stroke, but that's the fastest. Luce was obviously not a swimmer, despite her telling us she was, she was obviously not smart enough for calculus, despite her telling us she was, and she was obviously not worth notice from all these guys, despite her telling us she was. By the middle of the book, I was so frustrated with all her cobwebs of thought I wanted to swipe them away so I could see anything in this story. She spends the book describing her eternal lust for Daniel, except when Cam is around and she's distracted by her lust for him, but she's too dense to realize that either of them like her. This book is almost five hundred pages of Luce's internal dialogue of self-deprecation and confusion with the story sometimes happening in the background.

Every time anything remotely interesting starts to happen, Kate falls back on two tactics to keep her readers from learning anything: a) her vacuous heroine who doesn't understand any of the blatant clues and therefore doesn't ask the right questions, or b) scene interrupters with a passive heroine who lets every other character in the book control what she does. Luce zips from half-scene to half-scene without any of it being developed, as much a spectator to her own life as we are. We never get to understand the other characters, the undertones of their relationships, or what they're doing at the school in the first place. Kate stifles any progression in character, plot, everything, so she doesn't ruin those spoilers she's saving for the next book. But we, like Luce, aren't supposed to notice that we aren't getting any answers. We're supposed to be consumed by the hot, mysterious guys, gripping the pages in suspense.

The only reason I finished this book is because I wanted to prove my suspicion that Kate did not intend to give her readers any answers. Don't expect to find out what the black shadows are. Don't expect to learn what's behind this relationship that is the whole point of the book (all Kate gave us was a bunch of empty sexual tension that was as clipped and unsatisfying as the rest of the book). Don't expect to find out who all is after Luce and why. Don't expect to learn anything about any of the characters or find out anything that you can't already figure from the title, which Kate waits until the end to drop that revelation like it's an enlightening bombshell when she gives us nothing else.

(view spoiler)[I have major issues with Kate's twisting of biblical angels. Fallen angels are angels who have broken off from God, as she so eludes in her story. There are no "good" fallen angels, only those who follow Satan. And the disturbing behavior of the "good" fallen angels fall right in line with those who break away from God. I didn't care for any of them. Daniel is way too inconsistent to make him likable or believable, and the revelation we already know doesn't clear him of any of his actions. If Luce is in danger from shadows, Satan, religious zealots with higher power, a whole lot more than Daniel, he should have been more concerned for her welfare, even if he can only supervise her protection from a distance, instead of basing their entire relationship on sexual tension and confessions of unrequited love.

There is no way I will be reading the next book because I suspect that while this book frustrated me (making me not even want to finish it much less the series), the next one will infuriate me. From the clues Kate plants, it is my impression that Cam is supposed to be some version of Lucifer and Luce some version of Eve, which makes Daniel some version of Adam. Not only are her vacant characters unworthy of these Biblical characters, but I'm supposed to believe that Eve has been reincarnating since the dawn of time? That the good and evil of the entire world centers on the twisted, shallow, teenage love affair of fallen angels? Blasphemy. Adam is not a fallen angel, nor would he be so rude and crude. Satan did not love Eve; Satan loves nobody but himself. The fact that he only wants to harm us kind of lies at the basis of Christianity. Resurrection is found in the Bible, not reincarnation, and to make it the reincarnation of mother Eve somehow makes it worse. Adam and Eve are sacred in my book, and to see their story so mutilated like this is nothing more than disrespectful. I cringe to think all that Kate is intending to hide from us in her next book. (hide spoiler)]

The only part of this book I agreed with was this diabolical monologue from what is supposed to be the climax, while the real climax is happening elsewhere: "You're nothing more than you appear to be: a stupid, selfish, ignorant, spoiled little girl who thinks the world lives or dies on whether she gets to go out with some good-looking boy at school. Even if your death wouldn't accomplish something long-awaited, glorious, and grand, I'd still relish this moment, killing you." That's sad when you're rooting for the villain to take out the heroine. Sad because the cover had such promise.