Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

"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."

If you are into plots consisting 70% of soppy love stories, little to no character development, unrealistic/convenient plot twists and blurry writing…more
Ugh, another overhyped paranormal YA creation. When will I learn not to buy into hype? Just like so many readers, I gave into the favourable internet buzz and opened the book with an expectation of it to be something special. Unfortunately, "Beautiful Creatures" was just another painfully boring overlong dud.

Having finally finished this book with a high level of irritation and disappointment, I decided to check out the favourable reviews to see what people liked about the story. Turns out the most appreciated aspects of the book were: an original love story told from a male POV (compare it to those other romances told from whiny girls' POVs), truly original paranormal lore, and small town Southern setting. I personally found none of it particularly striking. Allow me to elaborate:

The story follows same old dead-beat formula: a paranormal/human pairing, uncovering of the "mysterious" partner's true nature, teens drawn to each other for some unknown reason (even my hope for some kind of reincarnation "twist" didn't quite work out), constant i-can't-be-with-you-cause-it's-dangerous back and forth, the inability to "be together" physically...

Male POV is also not successful. I think the book would have been better if told in 3rd person, at least the writers' inability to channel a voice of a 16-year old boy would have been somewhat concealed.

As for Southern small town feel, In "Beautiful Creatures" it never rings true and is based on old tired cliches of narrow-mindedness and drawl. I don't know what it's like to live in the South, nor do I have any particular desire to find out - but I'm pretty sure it's nothing like this. The setting in Beautiful Creatures is one big, fat stereotype and basically, it makes all Southern Americans seem like petty, bitchy, closed-minded, bigoted lumps of waste - and what an insult that is. If you need any evidence just check out Ethan when he says that he doesn't have an accent because he was raised by educated people. What the heck? He practically spells it out that all Southerners are STUPID, and spends about 90% of the time lamenting about how he's too good for the town and all the people in it, and how predictable everyone is, and for God's sake, it gets really annoying after a while.


But even all these issues aside, the book is simply a too long, often pointless concoction. Yes, the world of Casters (witches) is fairly new, but it is never too interesting or believable and can't justify the book's 600-page length.

I am still willing to give the writers some credit for their apparent effort to write a better book than the majority of YA writers, with a more intricate back story and better developed characters, but for me personally this book was just an excruciatingly long and boring read. The chances of me ever reading the sequel are non-existent.
If you are into plots consisting 70% of soppy love stories, little to no character development, unrealistic/convenient plot twists and blurry writing then yes, go for it. I didn't like it at all.
And I tend to like a lot of YA novels who are not perfectly written.
But I have to admit that there are some really good aspects in the book. I liked the different caster powers a lot and some of the side characters are quite cool.

Age Rating 13+. Nothing gory and light kissing. There are Incubi however they are not the traditional type but if you don't like the suggestion of demons then don't read.