Monday, February 11, 2013

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Goodreads Summary:

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.



My Review:
I have wanted to read this book for a while. It has been hanging out on my reading list. Then I saw the preview for the movie and knew I had to read it before seeing the movie. I kind of had high expectations for the book because the movie looks good. There was a lot happening in this book, it was quite long. I found myself getting a little bored and skipping stuff while reading it. It took me a while to finish it actually. It is told from Ethan's point of view so it was a little different to get a guys perspective. Lena moves to Gatlin to live with her uncle Macon. He isn't well known in town and people think he is kind of weird. Things start happening at school with Lena and then the parents of the kids get involved. They think Lena is a bad influence and claim she has had "violent" outbursts before. Eventually we find out that on Lena's 16th birthday she will either go to the light or dark side as a witch. She is terrified that she will go dark and her and Ethan try to figure out how to keep Lena from going dark. That is basically a summary of the entire book.

Ethan was a great guy as far as guys go. I felt like he accepted all this magic/witch stuff way to fast. I felt like he was great towards Lena. Everyone in town shunned her and the parents were awful as well. Simply crazy that they could be like that towards someone as adults. He really was Lena's rock throughout the story. 

I felt like this book was really long. I understand the need to set up a world in a book but, the goal could have been accomplished in fewer pages. It wasn't my favorite but, I will probably still read more of this series and the movie.

2 comments:

  1. Have you seen the movie yet? I liked it but they changed a lot of things and cut some characters! Which was an interesting move. I really like this book.. So much so that I just bought the next two! I'm really excited to read them! I love Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich... He's kind of my new book boyfriend... I love the way he played Ethan Wate! If you haven't seen it yet I recommend seeing it! I liked it... I thought the cast they chose was a great cast! But that's just me! Loved your review it was simple but summed it up really well!

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  2. Good review. Like you, I enjoyed it but didn't love it. The movie I did not like however.

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