Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Format: Paperback
Pages: 563
Publication Date: 12/9/2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
★★★☆☆
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. WhenLena 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.
I'll cut right to the chase. This book is okay, but it's not brilliant.
This is my second time reading it. I did this because I got a wild hare and decided that I had to review the entire Caster Chronicles series if I was going to maintain a decent blog reviewing YA fiction. That impulse resulted in the impulsive purchase of the entire series as a boxed set.
I did the same with Delirium, another book I disliked.
If Delirium works out the way that Beautiful Creatures did, it will be a lucky mistake.
Here's how it goes: This book is a solid three-star rating. That's the same rating I gave it the first time that I read it, and I stand by that rating even though it surprises me. Maybe the first time around I should have given the book two stars.
The difference between then and now is that the first time around, I didn't enjoy this book. Not even a little bit. I found it insufferably long and it took me nearly two months to finish reading the book because I couldn't stay with the story. According to my current rating system, that warrants a two-star rating.
Maybe this is why I chose to revise that system, yeah?
Having read this book twice now, I can attest that this is an enjoyable story and that I would recommend it to readers who enjoy atmospheric teen romances.
Thing is, that's not really me.
I'm not all that into romance, and teen romance has to be done very well to hold my attention. So far the only teen romance I've read that hooked me was (astonishingly) Twilight, and it captivated me for the precise reason that most people loathe the novels.
Before I talk to you earnestly about this book, I want to start out by telling you what didn't work for me at all.
It's poorly edited, considering that this book was published by a traditional publisher with a professional editor. There are commas where they don't belong, "then" is used in place of "than" at least once, and the authors seem to have some terminology problems.
For example, a "cineplex" by definition is a "cinema complex" which means that it has more than one auditorium (and screen). The movie theater in the book is described as a one-screen cineplex, which it cannot be by definition. Addtionally, the "sixteenth moon" is the "sixteenth month" and not the "sixteenth year." This appears to be an error made throughout the series, which is alarming.
Perhaps by the time the book made it to editing it was too late to get that fixed without disrupting the flow of the story, but it disrupted my enjoyment of the book every time I read it because it just felt wrong.
Adult readers for whom terminology matters may find they have the same issue with this book (and the series).
Those are the things that I didn't like about this book, and they are unavoidable for people who are sticklers for grammar and terminology. I didn't dock stars for this, however; I rated the book purely on my enjoyment, and it was merely "okay" compared to other books I've read this year.
It's difficult to define what I didn't like about this book based purely on my enjoyment of the book, but there is one important factor: It's too long.
In a sense this isn't fair because the book is exactly as long as it has to be and there is no unnecessary verbage throughout this novel. The authors don't waste words talking about the setting or drawing out threads of the story that don't need to be drawn out.
Still, 563 pages is long, and I don't like to spend five or six days on a single book when I can help it. For some reason, this book also reads slow for me. It took nearly six weeks the first time that I read it.
I'm not sure whether or not this will influence you, dear reader, but I also found that holding this tome gave me carpal tunnel. I had to put it down at intervals to rest my hands. Your copy may be smaller, or you may be reading it on an e-reader, but this was an actual issue for me.
With all that said, there were a lot of things that I enjoyed about this book.
It was atmospheric, to begin with. The first time I read it, I didn't quite get that sense, but this time around I was able to wallow in the atmosphere of Gatlin, South Carolina. That was amazing, and something that might have brought this book up to four stars if I'd been more enthralled with the narrative.
The story is good, but it's just good. It's not amazing and it doesn't make up for the lack of brevity. I was captivated enough to finish the book in less than a week, but not so captivated that I didn't spend periods of time being bored because the internet hasn't been installed at our new home yet.
It's paced well enough. As I said, the authors don't waste words on things that don't matter at all, and the story moves along from chapter to chapter without feeling as though it drags. I liked that, especially since the chapters are on the long side (and I prefer shorter chapters when I can get them).
The real problem is the characters. I won't put any definition on where they fall flat except that they are flat and that their developing romance is a bit unbelievable for characters in this age range. Teenagers tend to fall in love fast, hard, and often (with a few exceptions, of course), and the progression of the romance is perhaps a bit too slow.
I believe that this book will appeal more to younger readers than to adult readers and I want to be clear that it is, for all intents and purposes, a good story; It just lacks the depth that I'm typically looking for in the characters, and the grammar mistakes frustrate me.
After some consideration, I will not be reading Beautiful Darkness immediately, but will continue with the series shortly.
This is my second time reading it. I did this because I got a wild hare and decided that I had to review the entire Caster Chronicles series if I was going to maintain a decent blog reviewing YA fiction. That impulse resulted in the impulsive purchase of the entire series as a boxed set.
I did the same with Delirium, another book I disliked.
If Delirium works out the way that Beautiful Creatures did, it will be a lucky mistake.
Here's how it goes: This book is a solid three-star rating. That's the same rating I gave it the first time that I read it, and I stand by that rating even though it surprises me. Maybe the first time around I should have given the book two stars.
The difference between then and now is that the first time around, I didn't enjoy this book. Not even a little bit. I found it insufferably long and it took me nearly two months to finish reading the book because I couldn't stay with the story. According to my current rating system, that warrants a two-star rating.
Maybe this is why I chose to revise that system, yeah?
Having read this book twice now, I can attest that this is an enjoyable story and that I would recommend it to readers who enjoy atmospheric teen romances.
Thing is, that's not really me.
I'm not all that into romance, and teen romance has to be done very well to hold my attention. So far the only teen romance I've read that hooked me was (astonishingly) Twilight, and it captivated me for the precise reason that most people loathe the novels.
Before I talk to you earnestly about this book, I want to start out by telling you what didn't work for me at all.
It's poorly edited, considering that this book was published by a traditional publisher with a professional editor. There are commas where they don't belong, "then" is used in place of "than" at least once, and the authors seem to have some terminology problems.
For example, a "cineplex" by definition is a "cinema complex" which means that it has more than one auditorium (and screen). The movie theater in the book is described as a one-screen cineplex, which it cannot be by definition. Addtionally, the "sixteenth moon" is the "sixteenth month" and not the "sixteenth year." This appears to be an error made throughout the series, which is alarming.
Perhaps by the time the book made it to editing it was too late to get that fixed without disrupting the flow of the story, but it disrupted my enjoyment of the book every time I read it because it just felt wrong.
Adult readers for whom terminology matters may find they have the same issue with this book (and the series).
Those are the things that I didn't like about this book, and they are unavoidable for people who are sticklers for grammar and terminology. I didn't dock stars for this, however; I rated the book purely on my enjoyment, and it was merely "okay" compared to other books I've read this year.
It's difficult to define what I didn't like about this book based purely on my enjoyment of the book, but there is one important factor: It's too long.
In a sense this isn't fair because the book is exactly as long as it has to be and there is no unnecessary verbage throughout this novel. The authors don't waste words talking about the setting or drawing out threads of the story that don't need to be drawn out.
Still, 563 pages is long, and I don't like to spend five or six days on a single book when I can help it. For some reason, this book also reads slow for me. It took nearly six weeks the first time that I read it.
I'm not sure whether or not this will influence you, dear reader, but I also found that holding this tome gave me carpal tunnel. I had to put it down at intervals to rest my hands. Your copy may be smaller, or you may be reading it on an e-reader, but this was an actual issue for me.
With all that said, there were a lot of things that I enjoyed about this book.
It was atmospheric, to begin with. The first time I read it, I didn't quite get that sense, but this time around I was able to wallow in the atmosphere of Gatlin, South Carolina. That was amazing, and something that might have brought this book up to four stars if I'd been more enthralled with the narrative.
The story is good, but it's just good. It's not amazing and it doesn't make up for the lack of brevity. I was captivated enough to finish the book in less than a week, but not so captivated that I didn't spend periods of time being bored because the internet hasn't been installed at our new home yet.
It's paced well enough. As I said, the authors don't waste words on things that don't matter at all, and the story moves along from chapter to chapter without feeling as though it drags. I liked that, especially since the chapters are on the long side (and I prefer shorter chapters when I can get them).
The real problem is the characters. I won't put any definition on where they fall flat except that they are flat and that their developing romance is a bit unbelievable for characters in this age range. Teenagers tend to fall in love fast, hard, and often (with a few exceptions, of course), and the progression of the romance is perhaps a bit too slow.
I believe that this book will appeal more to younger readers than to adult readers and I want to be clear that it is, for all intents and purposes, a good story; It just lacks the depth that I'm typically looking for in the characters, and the grammar mistakes frustrate me.
After some consideration, I will not be reading Beautiful Darkness immediately, but will continue with the series shortly.
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