Review: BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Garcia & Stohl

TITLE: Beautiful Creatures

AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
AUTHOR WEBSITE: www.KamiGarcia.com
GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
PUBLISHED: December 1, 2009 – Little, Brown and Company
MY RATING: 2

SYNOPSIS:

(Courtesy of Goodreads-No Spoilers!)

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.

REVIEW:

*SPOILER WARNING*

This is Gothic Tale about a high school boy from a small southern town who falls in love with the creepy new girl, Lena Duchannes. He falls in love with her and is drawn to find out the supernatural connection between them.

The best thing: The story has beautiful descriptions of the setting, the people, and the mood. The authors know how to make all your senses get involved. I was really sitting there in the middle of a vision of burning lemon trees and rosemary.

But it was so hard to choke down the history detailed in the excruciatingly long book. It was almost painful trying to keep myself reading at some points. I am not surprised when there are dragging moments but when there are many and for long periods of time, I almost want to slam the book down and go hit my head on the wall. If only they would pinch out the stupid history lessons like an infected pimple which ended up having NOTHING to do with the main storyline. I endured all the civil war jazz thinking, “Oh, this must be part of the reason something happens here, hmm!” But NO it didn’t!

Characters: I have to say they took an interesting angle by writing the book from a guy’s point of view. He was saintly. I can’t say he wasn’t believable because my brother is totally awesome. But there’s a point to where a character loses his credibility. They really should have gone with omniscient. It would have taken some work, but it would have made more sense when they described the teen girls clothing from head to toe, pink fingernails to silver purses. I believe this book may have been written on a series of bad decisions.

Narrator should have been limited-omni. Ethan would have appeared less like a girl. Lena might have been a little bit more interesting. Amma was my fav, such attitude. There were some funny parts too. But when they were talking “in their minds” I got confused by who was saying what.

PLOT: Seriously up until Lena started explaining her family as “casters” (witches) I was LOVING this story. I love the mystery and dreaming, etc. But then all the witchcraft started and I was nauseated. Can’t anyone come up with something better than witchcraft for the reasons for supernatural powers? I was disappointed.

RATING:

Okay, Here it is. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it. I won’t be reading any sequel because this one seemed like such a waste of all the good ol’ hype. I give Beautiful Creatures a 2. Fair: Not quite worth it. It didn’t kill me to read it, although I should have been doing something else. And the ultimate reason is because it was too stinkin’ long!

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I won’t be letting my teen read this because of the witchcraft element.