Beautiful Creatures

Details

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Author: Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publication Year: 2011

Language: English

Genre: Horror, Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Magic

Rating: 7/10

Continuation: It is the first book in the "Caster Chronicles" series.

Pages: 563

Review

Beautiful Creatures follows two protagonists, Lena Duchannes and Ethan Lawson Wate. The story narrated mostly by Ethan, until Lena takes over in the last chapter of the novel. Ethan lives a simple, even boring life in the small town of Gaitlin. He starts having mysterious and realistic dreams all linking back to one girl. 

Lena is the niece of the town's shut-in. She is shunned by her school, as the small-minded community refuses to get over their problem with her uncle, Macon Ravenwood. But Lena's problems go deeper than that. She is about to be Claimed on the night of the Sixteenth Moon of the Sixteenth Year and there is nothing she can do about it.

Ethan and Lena are bound by a deep and powerful love and it is only that love which will protect Lena until her fate is decided on her sixteenth birthday. 

This novel is quite twisted and shocking. The fantastical element is the drive of the story and there is a build-up of suspense from the very beginning. As the book progresses, shocking secrets and elements of the plot are revealed. As the novel comes to an end, the reader has a complete picture. In my opinion, this makes for a satisfying reading experience.

The romance between Ethan and Lena is not too aggressive but is still portrayed as powerful. The author develops their relationship and strengthens it through simple emotional gestures, rather that physical ones. I find that the author's technique to develop the emotion in their relationship is commendable.  This said, I also find that they never really fell in love. Ethan saw her in her dreams, thought she was hot and they start declaring their deep and devoted love for each other? This strikes me as quite unrealistic, but then, perhaps it's just my mind over-analyzing the novel. 

This book is built deeply on relationships, not only between Lena and Ethan, but between them and their families. The main plot of the story is the Casters and the Claiming. I have never seen this outlook on magic been explored before, and therefore, I find it remarkably innovative. The author painstakingly provides every detail of the magic, down to the eye color of different Casters. This may seem like a bore, but the author has a knack for making every description interesting and intriguing, keeping the reader riveted to most sections of the novel.

There were a few inconsistencies in the novel, which I feel should be mentioned. Firstly, Ethan Wate is meant to be a guy. No guy ever, especially a teenage boy, will be able to distinguish the smell of lemon and rosemary. He will not go into meticulous detail about the different types of dresses girls wear to dances and he most certainly will not over-analyze every detail of the girl he likes. This just makes the whole thing seem unrealistic. 

Next, Ethan has mud in his bed and all he does it think about it for five minutes? If I wake up from a mysterious dream and find mud in my bed, I would sure as hell be freaking out. 

Lastly, the authors tended to stretch certain elements of the novel out. For example, Lena is losing control of her power and weird stuff is going on everywhere, yet the reader sits through five pages of a high school dance that wasn't a smart idea in the first place. Lena is about to get taken by the Darkest Caster Ever, yet she would like to go to a high school dance or to a party on her Claiming day. If she doesn't care about her destiny, why should I? Time's running out and instead of sitting around, Ethan and Lena should be panicking and trying to stop the inevitable. 

All in all, the book was interesting, but unless you really enjoy fantasy novels, I would suggest you don't waste your time with all 563 pages of it.