Beautiful Creatures

A solid 3 1/2, not as badly written and over dramatically love-obsessive as Twilight, but in the same vein. I liked that it was witches and not vampires (again), that is was narrated by a 16 year old boy, and that the romance was interesting and much more believable than other teen reads, but still PG enough for middle school.

Not much to say about this cover, it is pretty bleh for me. But as for the story, it was great. I loved the characters, the world, and the setting. I don't know how Garcia and Stohl split up the writing, but I personally couldn't tell a difference in style.

Having a YA book where the boy is the main character is a rarity, especially in the YA romance area. So I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that we would get to learn all about Casters and Gatlin from Ethan's point of view. I loved that the book was about him finding his way in his messed up town with Lena. It wasn't the typical damsel in distress that is seen in a lot of YA novels.

But as for the actually story, the entire novel counts down to Lena's 16th birthday when her claiming will happen. This will basically decide whether she will be Dark or Light. But there is a curse on her family that doesn't allow the children to choose. The countdown is a major theme in the book. And along the way we learn more about Casters and their histories.

This book contains a lot of mystery and twists that the reader is just thrown into and has to decipher as they come about. I really loved learning about all the different connections between Lena's family and Ethan's “family”. They basically all band together to be different from the rest of Gatlin.

Speaking of Gatlin, I love this town. Not in a way where I would ever want to live there, but in the way that it is freaking awesome how ridiculous there are. At the same time though, it is oddly realistic of small towns. Everyone is in everyone's business and there are those that are outcasts in the town. Small towns don't let you stick out and be different like the Ravenwoods and Wates tend to be. I loved how ridiculous some of the parents were with respect to Lena and her uncle. Some of the lengths they went to, to get her to leave town were absurd.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and it definitely lived up to the hype surrounding it. Now it isn't amazing, but it is decent novel that takes a different approach then the paranormal YA novels and I have to appreciate that.

And I will be reading the rest of the series, because I have heard they get better.