Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, #1)

by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

The first book in a lush gothic fantasy series for younger readers of Charlaine Harris and fans of Cassandra Clare.

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.

• ISBN10: 0316042676
• ISBN13: 9780316042673
• Publish Date: 1 December 2009 (first published 1 January 2009)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 576
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Find more reviews like this at The Literary Phoenix.

Ethan is in love, but Lena's counting down her remaining days.

Nothing ever happens in Gatlin.  It's the same sleepy town with the same sleepy people and their Civil War reenactments and cheerleading squads.  Nothing happens in Gatlin... until Lena Duchannes moves to town.  Suddenly, the weather gets worse than "just" hurricane season and suddenly everyone has their eyes on the mysterious Ravenwood Manor, and Ethan falls in love.

For Lena, the notoriety is the last thing she wants.  She just wants to be a normal girl and have friends and go to school.  Her birthday draws ever nearer and with it, the dark fate that grips her family.  Will she be claimed by Dark or Light?  What will her future hold?  Her sixteenth birthday will tell her, and she's terrified.

I liked this book more than I expected.

Beautiful Creatures is a huge tome of a book, but despite that, it was a fun read.  It's been a while since I've read anything witchy, so perhaps it was just missing in my life.  I typically enjoy witch-based books and magical abilities, and it's a bit of a nice change after such a long run of science fiction and dystopias.  Lena and Ethan are both perfectly likable as main characters, a little cliched but interesting enough.

The side characters were interesting enough to be recognized as well.  Figures like Marian, Macon, and Amma stand out best.  It's the villains that were a bit of a disappointment, being neither as horrible nor villainous as advertised.

I liked the ghost story, but there wasn't enough of it.

The beginning of Beautiful Creatures starts telling the story of Genevieve and Ethan, and in the middle of the book, Genevieve's ghost makes an appearance.  The spectral figure seemed like she would play perfectly into the story, but the author decided to take things in a different direction and I felt like all the time spent on the history ended up being wasted.  I believe the authors used it to illustrate the alignments, but I feel like there was a deeper potential there I wanted to see explored.

All in all, I find it really frustrating when a love story overtakes a deeper plot.  Beautiful Creatures is no exception to that rule.

Good, but not great.

This doesn't go on my all time favorites list, but I'll be reading the sequel.  I think the story has some potential and I'm interested to see where it goes.  That said, I'm not so invested that I will keep reading if book two just ends up being more of the same.  I would like to see more into the Caster's world and their abilities, at less about Gatlin High and Lena and Ethan's love story.

[Leah]

I loved Beautiful Creatures! I was a bit worried going in to this series that it would be too much - there are four books, all over 500 pages each plus novellas etc and I just wasn't sure if I was ready for the commitment for yet another YA series, but I really enjoyed it.

I loved Lena and Ethan, the fact it was written from Ethan's POV, the flashbacks or whatever you want to call them, the whole idea of casters, all of it. It was super absorbing and I can't wait to get into book two!

[littleread1]

Eh. Unsure if I will continue the rest.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

eautiful Creatures reminded me a bit of a darker, young adult version of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Taking place in what could be considered the deep south (Gatlin, SC) strange things start to happen with Lena arrives into town and Ethan falls almost instantly in love.

What I found most surprising about the book was that it was told from Ethan’s point of view. I assumed it was told from the girl’s point of view. Stupid assumption on my part and I missed all the press about this novel and its subsequent trip to theatres (don’t ask me how!). So I knew nothing going in. So I did find that to be refreshing to a point. The story still follows the typical tropes about falling in forbidden love faster than a you can blink. And there all the bits about Caster powers, which I still don’t completely understand, but I didn’t keep listening for those reasons anyway.

I kept listening because the audio production did such a good job at setting the mood and place. Kevin T. Collins had the perfect husky voice, there were sound effects when it would rain and storm and there was music. I didn’t care in the end what happened to Ethan and Lena (that final battle was a mess, I still don’t understand what the heck happened), I just wanted to stay in that gothic Southern setting with old rotting plantations and hotter than hell summers. I could see myself sitting on the porch sipping fresh lemonade with Amma and Mason, my two favorite characters.

While the story was predictable and the main characters, Ethan & Lena, fell flat for me. I have to give the audiobook production a solid thumbs up. It kept me engaged with goosebumps from time to time and even though Ethan saw Gatlin as a dead end, I want to visit to have some of Amma’s home cooking and to visit the Marian at the library.


This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews

[Sarah Says]

In the first book, Beautiful Creatures, we follow Ethan and Lena as they discover each other and the connection that ties them together. We see Ethan plunged into a magical world he never knew existed and Lena escape being claimed. We meet many influential characters, including Lena’s Dark Caster mother, Sarafine. The main characters all bar one survive Lena’s 16th birthday and there are plenty of loose ends to drive you in to reading the second book, Beautiful Darkness.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4.5

[clairelm]

This was a fascinating book.

I normaly finish the books I start, I don't like leaving them unfinished because I sometimes think they will have a twist and turn good. So here I was, waiting for it to turn good.....and I'm still waiting because I'm in the middle of the book and bored as hell. This book is not only boring, but ridiculous and I'm still wondering how this book could have a 3.78 in rating. And if the only reason you want to read this book is because of the romance part.....I think you would find more love-that is actually not stupid and ridiculous-in a history book.
This girl «Lena» can control the weather, speak to minds and lots of things, and the guy acts like it's normal! The girl appears out of nowhere and is coincedentially the girl that appears in his dreams, and he's like "oh,you appear in my dreams". SOOOOOOOO EXPRESIVE! This book has no feelings except for,well, boringness and cost me 6 dolars, thanks!
So, I do not recommend this book to anybody, and I'm sorry if I made someone upset but it's the truth.

[Kim Deister]

My review: This book was already a movie by the time I began the series, which I have since seen and will talk about in a different post soon! I really liked this book, more than I expected to. For some reason, I went into it thinking it was going to be somewhat corny/sappy romance with the other elements to make it a truly well-rounded story. But there is a little bit of everything in this book... secrets, mystery, angst, magic, and more.

There were two things that truly made a great foundation for this book, and really the whole series. One was that it is written to be a somewhat multi-generational story, weaving in and out of family histories. There is a lot of richness to be had in that kind of family saga. The other thing I liked was the gothic element that wove together the love between Lena and Ethan and the darkness that made up the paranormal elements of the story.

The story is set in a quintessential southern town, still reliving the Civil War and making it a deep part of the town's culture. But, even with the occasional trips back in time, this could not be labeled historical fiction. Instead that history served as a backdrop for the story.

Things to love about Beautiful Creatures...

--The character of Lena. I loved that she wasn't created to be the epitome of teenage perfection. She struggled deeply with darkness and that made her so much more believable and likable.
--The alternate world. I loved how the authors created a world for the Casters and laid it on top of our own. The existence of the Caster Library is an example of this. A magical library with a librarian that exists below the regular library. The mythology of magic was thoroughly blended with that of the mundane.
--The ending. It left a fabulous opening for the next book.
--The POV. It was told from the POV of Ethan, instead of the usual female lead. This was refreshing!

Things I wanted more of...

--The mythology of the Caster world. I am hoping that this is explored is explored more full in subsequent books.

My recommendation: If you like paranormal YA, I would suggest this. I liked the characters a whole lot more than those of certain vampire fiction. There is darkness and angst, but it doesn't overload the teenage emo attitude. I will definitely be reading the next book

[Angie]

Beautiful Creatures is one of those books that I went into hesitantly. There’s a lot of hype surrounding this book, especially with the movie out now, but there’s also a lot of hate for it. I wasn’t sure which side I’d come out on, but I landed somewhere in the middle. Definitely closer to the hate side though. I didn’t hate it at all, but there are way more negatives than positives that I can point out. I really enjoyed the basic story, but there are a lot of world building and characterization issues that kept me from rating it higher. It’s also way too long, so the story drags quite a bit in places.

First, I enjoyed having a male POV, especially since Ethan is a mostly normal human. This reminded me of Twilight‘s set up, and I’m saying that as a compliment. I liked seeing the paranormal world from a human’s perspective for a change. However, I can’t say that I really liked Ethan, or how he was portrayed. From the very first chapter he has this “I’m better than everyone” attitude going on. Essentially he thinks everyone in the South (or at least in his town of Gatlin, South Carolina) is a stupid idiot (his words, not mine) and close-minded and fake and, well, stupid.

He makes sure we know that he’s not like that at all because his parents are educated. Okay, great. Ethan is full of himself and everyone in town is a horrible Southern stereotype. Ethan also makes sure that we know he lives in the South, specifically in Gatlin. The first third or so of Beautiful Creatures is spent with Ethan repeatedly saying things like, “In Gatlin…” or “The people of Gatlin…” and “That’s how things are in Gatlin.” Over and over and over. Okay, we get it. You live in Gatlin, which is full of stupid Southern people! Wonderful. Move on!

When Ethan isn’t reminding us of where he lives and how he hates everyone, he actually did come across as a nice guy. He’s the only person to be nice to Lena, but I had a feeling it was mostly to prove that he’s not like his close-minded classmates. And because he’s been dreaming about her forever. Of course, he gets tangled up in her supernatural problems and agrees to help her. Although I do question his motivation for doing so, since a few times he said he wanted to get the help over with so they could do some more kissing. Typical teenage boy.

Okay, enough about Ethan. I hate American History. Seriously, it was my least favorite subject in school. However, I kind of liked how the Civil War played an important part in Beautiful Creatures. I do like Historical Fiction, so maybe that’s why. Whatever the reason, I do think that the historical aspect was well mixed with the paranormal.

Now for my world building issues. The first being the word Mortal used to describe humans. I know it’s common among paranormal books, but usually the supernatural species using it are immortal, so it makes sense. Are Casters immortal? I have no idea. I didn’t get the impression that they were, so calling non-magical people Mortal doesn’t work, if they’re in fact mortal also. I would have liked some clarification on this.

The other problem was the big reveal about the family curse at the end. I’m not going to mention specifics in order to avoid spoilers, but I think you’ll still be able to get my point. In typical paranormal romance fashion, Lena and Ethan have issues being together since she’s a Caster and he’s a Mortal. However, when she’s about to be Claimed on her birthday, she’s told that they found a way for her to be with him. But no one says what this way is. Just that it exists. Why is Lena all of a sudden special and can have a human boyfriend? I hate lazy cop outs like this. I want a reason why!

One more thing about Lena’s Claiming. It suppose to happen at midnight on her birthday. So why does it happen at midnight AFTER her birthday. Days start at midnight, so her Claiming should have been at the beginning of her birthday day not the next day. It’s a small thing, but it really bothered me.

And finally, there’s the whole school situation. Although this can probably be attributed to everyone being “a stupid idiot.” Would a principal really take three teenage girls at their word without even attempting to get the other side of the story?! I don’t think so. These awful girls are trying to get Lena expelled just because she’s different, so they blame all kinds of things on her. Sure, Lena did cause that window to break, but not in the way they made it sound. First of all, if she threw something at a window it would break outward. It wouldn’t spray glass INTO the classroom. Yet, the principal doesn’t realize this. He doesn’t even let Lena defend herself about any of the false accusations, and at the “meeting” he doesn’t even want her uncle who is her guardian to speak! Um…no.

Despite this extremely negative review, I did like Beautiful Creatures. At least once you push aside all of the above problems. I just can’t exactly pinpoint what it is that I liked, and I hate that I’m making it sound worse than it is. Maybe I’m just a sucker for anything paranormal, which is most likely true. But there was something about this book that kept me reading, so I would recommend giving it a try. The ending isn’t really a cliffhanger, but the very last lines do open it up for the sequels, which I may or may not read.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.