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.

The one thing I actually really like about this series - and it was a little weird at first - is that the story is told from Ethan's point of view. We have come to adapt to the whole human girl falls for the good looking supernatural guy but it's the other way around in the Caster Chronicles, which I found quite refreshing.

I really liked the characters a lot - Ethan starts off as a bit of a weird kid who just fits in because he was born in his little Southern town. Until he meets Lena and then he becomes very strong minded and stands up for her against everyone else.

I loved Lena. I thought her character was very realistic. So often you come across characters that could never survive in the real world. I liked that Lena came across as not caring about what other people think but the way this story has been written, you get Lena's POV too when she talks to Ethan psychically and you can see that she does care about what other people think and she just wants to be a normal teenage girl. And in a way she is - she worries about every day things as well as worrying about her birthday that is coming up - when she will turn either Light or Dark. Anyway I loved both of these characters.

Even the smaller characters were great. Amma, Macon, Link, Lena's family and especially Boo :)

The story was so easy to read and although was it a little bit longer than your average teen supernatural novel, it only took a couple of days to get through it.

I've already started the second book Beautiful Darkness and I can't wait to find out what happens next.

I feel like I keep saying it, but it took me a little bit to get into this one too. But halfway through I couldn't put it down! It was different being inside Ethan's head, instead of the girl, but it worked for the story. I loved the lore and the world the authors created. I'll be buying the sequel with my Amazon gift card!

Qué libro para más extraño!!! Hubo momentos en los que simplemente no quería parar de leer pero luego hubo muchas partes dónde decía “por favor qué acabe ya!!!”. Creo que tiene que ver con el inicio, que es un tanto absurdo, me parece que si se hubieran tomado un capítulo más para describir la desesperación de Ethan, hubiera estado muy feliz, no llegué a sentir eso de lo que habla Ethan, la desesperación por los sueños, la agonía y la sorpresa al conocer a Lena, no lo sentí, pero creo que al igual que en The Host, sólo lo terminas porque uno es terco al leer, no es un libro malo, pero si un tanto aburrido, me quede dormida varias veces al leer (cosa que nunca me pasa) quiero echarle la culpa al cansancio y no al libro pero bueno...

Haven't been this sucked in by / impressed by a YA novel since [b:Divergent 13335037 Divergent (Divergent, #1) Veronica Roth http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg 13155899] – and this one might actually be more impressive. This is a rich cast of characters, mostly well-developed – with room to grow as we spend more time with them. A wonderfully detailed world and magic system – I love the Southern-life details given. The book wraps up the story-lines well, and leaves plenty of room to develop the strings left untied (am very curious about a couple of them).

Det første som slo meg var at denne boka var utrolig lang til å være en YA-bok! Men for lang – det var den ikke, for det var nok handling til å holde meg interessert helt til slutten.
Lena og Ethan hadde et søtt forhold, og jeg synes ikke det gikk alt for fort. Ethan ble betatt fra første øyekast, ja, men de ble ikke offisielt kjærester før langt uti boka. Det jeg syntes var mest interessant å lese om var Caster-biblioteket. Skulle ønske jeg kunne tatt en titt der! Det fascinerte meg virkelig. Familien og huset til Lena var også artig å lese om. Det med at hele Gatlin slo seg sammen mot Lena var kanskje litt for overdrevet, men... Slutten var ganske “cliffhangete” av seg, og jeg er spent på å lese oppfølgeren.

This could have been a decent YA novel. It had premise: witches, male narrator, mysterious girl, and fated love, all of this set in the south. Interesting premise, awful execution.

The story is set in Gatlin, South Carolina. I must admit I was expecting a little bit of southern glamour a la Midnight in the garden of good and evil. But this town, I never did get a feel for it...it was just bland. Could have been Forks (especially with all that rain) with a few characters still stuck in the Civil War era.

Ethan, the protagonist and narrator, was unbelievable as a human being let alone a teenage boy. Now, I realize that writing the opposite gender is difficult but Ethan is just a mess of inconsistent behavior. He's got no personality and no redeeming traits. He's not brave (stuff just happens to him), he's not kind. He's just as shallow and judgmental as all the other Gatlin residents but somehow thinks he's better than the rest of them. It could have worked if he was written to be an anti-hero or if he changed during the course of the book. He wasn't and he didn't. He yearns for something more (seriously, I could believe a fifty year old woman saying this after a series of unfulfilling relationships...not a high schooler). He gets pissed off when his depressed father tries to commit suicide...seriously. Again, it could have worked if the authors had dug a little deep into his character.

The rest of the cast was just as bland. There's was the evil blonde, tanned, slutty cheerleader. For once, I'd like to see a pale brunette cheerleader. Amma could have been interesting - the whole voodoo aspect - but her constant word spelling just got annoying. Let's not forget the whole “I know something you don't but you're not ready to hear it yet...” That is a stupid plot device. It's a lazy plot device. There are many ways of letting the reader know something is up without straight out telling. Lena was as petty and bland as the rest.

Maybe it's just me but I like my protagonists to triumph by being better and not by stooping as low as the villains. Macon gets the town to back off by spilling all their dirty secrets, the librarian consistently shows off the uneducated masses by throwing random quotes out (apparently the authors must have stumbled upon brainyquotes.com). A character that uses her intellect only to humiliate other characters is not likeable. And I won't even get into the Winter Formal scene which was a total rip-off of Carrie (a weak one at that) and where our main characters flee after humiliating the cheerleaders and feeling pretty damn good about leaving a crowd about to be fried to death. No. Just no. I know I was supposed to cheer for these protagonists...but I just couldn't. They were just awful petty people.

As for the romance...I'm still looking for it. I like romance. I like cheesy and fluffy. That's why I read these books and that's why I hate insta-love. I want to watch the characters fall in love. I want to experience it with them. I want them to meet, to talk, to interact, to gets into situations where they have to work to together. I want them to slowly realize that they're falling in-love. Even if it's destined love or what not, I still want a believable love story. I don't know why Ethan loves Lena and visa versa...really I don't. I'm told they're in love on page 5.

The magic system is a convoluted mess. For most of the book, there are just witches...and then without warning comes the INFO-DUMP of DOOM. Several pages of sirens, catalysts, naturals, illusionists, shifters, sybils, and palimpsest...yea...palimpsest. Oh and Kelting!

“What's Kelting?...the way we're able to communicate with each other no matter where we are.” P273.

like, felt like, seemed like, kinda like, looked like, probably like

“I didn't know what I was feeling, but whatever it was, Lena was feeling the opposite.” p.244

“Charlotte was one thing no self-respecting cheerleader should ever be, a little chunky.” p.54

I was a bit weary of this book after reading some of the scathing reviews it was receiving, but I have to say I really enjoyed this one! It was interesting to read a YA paranormal novel from a teenage boys point of view. I really haven't run across to many of those and this one sucked me right in. I can't wait to read #2 in the series!