Beautiful Creatures

Review: Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Review: Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Release Date: December 1, 2009
Age Group: Young Adult

Page Numbers: 563

Rating: ★★★
 
There were no surprises in Gatlin County.

We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.

At least, that's what I thought.

Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.


Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.


    I might get hate mail for this (Lol, let's hope not) but I have to be completely honest. For me, Beautiful Creatures was not very original at all. I mean, there were parts of course where I was hooked, and the pages kept turning, but I really did have to push myself to get through this one.


    Ethan Wate was supposedly a teenage boy but for a vast majority of the book I thought I was reading from a young girl's point of view...He didn't seem like a guy, to me.


    And the visions...did anybody else realize that Ethan and Lena knew who the people in the visions were without actually finding out? The vision's narrator basically told them!


    I didn't feel any chemistry between Ethan and Lena, either. I really didn't. They both liked eachother, I know that...but I know that because I was told. When I read romance (yes, even paranormal/supernatural romance) I want to be able to see that the characters like eachother by the way they act, not what they say. I want to be able to feel the chemistry between them, I want to see the sparks lighting up the room. Unfortunately, that didn't happen with this book.


    I feel like the whole Light and Dark Caster idea was a tad immature...I don't know, maybe I'm too picky. I just feel like the story concept has been done before...many times. The guy has a dream about a girl, he finds the girl, they fall in love, one of them is evil. You know?


   But on a brighter note, I liked the feel of the book, if that makes sense. In other words, I liked the southern feel. I also enjoyed some of the ideas that the authors had, the more fantastical ideas that I won't state here just because it would be more enjoyable if you didn't know it going in to the book. There was a respectable amount of twists, also. I also have to give a thumbs up to the authors, for weaving their work together almost seamlessly! :)


    There were only a few parts when I could really tell the difference.


    All in all, I would give this book a three. I still recommend it, but just don't have super high expectations (like me) because you might get disappointed. If you're wondering, yes, I am getting the sequel Beautiful Darkness because I feel that this series has big potential :).






Until next time, xoxo.