Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Series: Caster Chronicles #1

Pages: 563

Received: Bought own copy

Release Date: March 31, 2011
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Goodreads Synopsis:

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.

We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.

At least, that's what I thought.

Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

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:

So I decided to finally pick this book up (after letting it sit on my shelf for months!) because I figured it needs to be read before the movie comes out. There has been so much talk about this series and really most of the things I've heard have been how amazing this series is. I will admit this book definitely has me interested in the rest of the series, but I found I wasn't completely enthralled with the book.

I thought it was really interesting that the book was told from Ethan's perspective because you get to see how a normal person reacts to being thrust into a supernatural world, but not being supernatural themselves. It was different, I'm used to reading books from the perspective of the person coming into the supernatural gift.

The main thing that kept me from loving this book was that it took so long to get into anything. I found that the book focused on describing everything and everyone in the town. I like when books focus on descriptions but I don't like when it seems like there is more focus on that then the story itself, and that is what I felt this book did.

I also felt kind of meh towards the character of Lena, I wanted her to do more about her situation. She sat there and talked about doing something, but then would complain that she couldn't. It took awhile for me to actually grow to even liking her, but I will admit by the end, I was feeling a little better about her characterization.

I did love the mystery to this book though. There was a lot of information about the past of Gatlin county that really had a lot to do with the present and I really enjoyed following Ethan and Lena as they learned about the history and what it had to do with them. What I really liked was the added in surprise that I can say I didn't see coming. There was a great influence of family in this book, with Lena's family being close in some ways and trying to be there for one another.

I can definitely see myself continuing with the next book, but it may not be for awhile. While the ending did leave me wanting more, I just feel that there are books I'm more interested in at the moment.