Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Review: Beautiful Creatures


Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Pages: 563
Published: Dec 1st, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown
Reviewer: Charlotte

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.


Wow this is the fastest I've read a book since summer, it gets an award for motivation!

I have to disclose that I saw the movie first. I'm not ashamed at all, because my love of the movie caused me to go home and start the book immediately. This did give me an opportunity to think about book-to-movie adaptations. I think I may write a separate blog post about that, because I want to compare this one to my viewing of Percy Jackson.

What I got at in the above paragraph, is that the movie is a lot different than the book. Different in a way that I liked. This review is about the book though, so I'll leave that discussion for later.

The major thing I liked was reading from Ethan's POV. Most books that are written from guy's POV are written a lot more crudely than a woman's POV. From my reading experience, there's a lot more body descriptions and sexual stuff when it's written with a male voice. I have no idea if that's how men actually think but nonetheless I liked reading a book that wasn't written as if the author knew they were writing a different gender and had to work for it. The characterization was all written very well and the authors made every single character interesting even if they weren't written to be likable. I could list out every character that I loved, or I could just say I loved every single Caster. The history of Gatlin, the descriptions of the plantation, and the complexities of the social structure were other things I loved about this book.

So yes, this book was a fantastic romance. It was more than that though, it was a whole different world filled with new lore. The characters were layered nicely and acted in a way that didn't have me aggravated with their choices. Honestly, the only thing that annoyed me was a tiny thing that's irrelevant to the plot. I didn't like how by the second half of the book, Ethan stopped referring to Lena with her full name, and instead called her 'L'. Seriously, is Lena that hard to write out?

I recommend this book to anyone, if you're a fan of romance or fantasy. I can't wait to start the second book ASAP!



1 comment:

  1. I'm glad you posted this! I just got this book from the e-library and was wondering if I should start it next!

    Jessica@Lovin' Los Libros

    (New Follower!)

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