beautiful creatures

We are starting this blog off with a bang! I am going to dive right into my first book review.

All opinions are my own, I received no compensation, yada yada yada :)

In honor of the release of the movie today, I am going to talk about the book Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

source

Book: Beautiful Creatures

Authors: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Series: Caster Chronicles

Pages: 563 (according to my kindle app)

I was very excited about reading this book, since I do love a good paranormal story. I actually became interested in this book because of the trailer for the movie, which almost never happens. I am one of those who thinks a movie can never do a book justice (the only exception: A Walk to Remember- the book was horrible compared to the movie adaption). But it looked interesting, and that's usually all it takes to get me to read a book.

The story is set in fictional Gatlin, South Carolina, a small southern town filled with small southern minds. The main character is a 16 year old boy named Ethan; he's popular, on the basketball team, but has recently lost his mother and his father is in a grief-stricken stupor. He's bored and tired of the same old routine in Gatlin when a mysterious new girl arrives in school. Her name is Lena Duchannes (doo-can), and she is the niece of the town's mysterious recluse, Macon Ravenwood. Ethan is instantly smitten with Lena, regardless of the opinions of his family and friends. Lena is considered an outsider, not from Gatlin, and therefore, dangerous. Little do the townspeople of Gatlin know that Lena is far more dangerous than they think. She comes from a family of casters, and her sixteenth birthday is looming in the distance.

 What will happen? 

Will she fight to remain Light, or be claimed for the Dark, as she fears?

 (I totally read the last two sentences in my mind in a deep movie announcer voice. Feel free to do the same)

This book reminded me quite a bit of Twilight. 

Before you groan and roll your eyes, know that I thought Twilight was a pretty good series until Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson ruined the characters forever (Does she have more than one facial expression? Sheesh). 

In my humble opinion, this book could have been a lot better than it was. I found myself getting bored halfway through. The story started becoming redundant, with waaaaay too much emphasis placed on the lovey-dovey stuff and not enough on the character development of the bad guy.

There's this huge countdown to Lena's birthday, because something horrible may happen. I found myself thinking, "who cares? can something interesting please happen?"

Now, this could be entirely because I am getting too old for teenage romance stories.

(Noooooo!)

At 25 years old with a baby, a husband, and laundry piling up all around me, I simply find it difficult to relate to a 16 year old falling in love for the first time. Shocking, I know. Maybe this should be a sign that I read more grown up books?

Nah.

I digress. My final opinion of Beautiful Creatures is that it is a decent book without a lot of plot or character development. This may because there are two writers, but I don't know. I would suggest reading this book only if you have nothing else on your reading list. It wasn't awful, but certainly was not great. 

Perhaps the movie will be better?

 Someone will have to let me know, since going to the movies is nowhere in my immediate future (with a 2 month old, and all).