Review: Beautiful Creatures

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Title: Beautiful Creatures
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Source: Periplus Online
Synopsis:

Is falling in love the beginning . . . or the end?

In Ethan Wate's hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . .

There is a girl. Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head . . . Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes.

There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it's been promised. And no one can stop it.

In the end, there is a grave.

Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.

Review: ⋆⋆⋆

"Sixteen Moons, Sixteen Years 
Sixteen of your deepest fears 
Sixteen times you dreamed my tears 
Falling, Falling through the years..."

Let's kick this off with a confession: I saw the movie before I read the book, and I liked the movie. I don't remember what it was about it, but I enjoyed it enough that I resolved to check out the book. The book is always better than the movie, right?

In this case, I'm not so sure.

I was really intrigued by the world we were introduced to here. The contrast between sleepy Gatlin and the supernatural world of Ravenwood is fabulous; there's so much potential for the Casters' world to be absolutely fascinating. I loved the different powers, and I especially love the library - that was a brilliant idea. The Southern setting also sets it apart for me; at times the depiction of Gatlin's society with their pride of its history and their treatment of strangers, but I appreciated the realness of it. My only issue with the world-building was that there were heaps of exposition whenever we learned about Casters. I remember what each of the Caster character can do, but there's no way I can remember what their powers are called.

As for the characters, it took me a while to figure out why I never connected with them, but I finally did. It's just like Twilight. Ethan was an interesting character at first - he's stuck somewhere he doesn't belong, and he's yearning to leave. Lena also started out quite intriguing - she's rather unfriendly at first, and she too doesn't fit in. Then they got together, and became EthanandLena - practically nonfunctional as separate individuals. They're quite literally in each others' heads all the time. Ethan ceased to care about anything but being with Lena - just like Bella did when she fell in love with Edward. I'm not saying it's not realistic, but it irritated me.

In the end, the good and the bad balanced each other up for me. So I may give the second book a shot eventually!

"Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures."