Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margharet Stohl

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Author: Kami Garcia and Margharet Stohl

Pages: 563

Genre: Paranormal

Release Date: December 1, 2009

Publisher: Little Brown And Company

"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."- Book Description

May contain very minor spoilers. I tried hard to keep them out though.

Well, I finally read it. It only took me six months. I can't stand DNFing books and just couldn't give up on this one. Even if it meant taking a break for two months at a time. Honestly, I get why so many people love this book. I really do. But sadly, I hated it. Now before you guys scream at me until you're blue in the face, let me explain.

To start out with, the book was annoyingly cliche.  It included a small town with jerk jocks and  bullying cheerleaders (of course the main character was an exception),a misunderstood and brooding love interest, love at first sight (of course this is exscusable because Ethan had been having dreams about Lena (don't get me started on the dreams) and they had a connection, and everyone is keeping secrets (what a suprise). What bugged me the most was the way the South was portrayed. I know at least one of the author's has lived in the South but so have I. People don't act like that. Most people there aren't quite that ignorant and community-involved there. But the worst thing was the Civil War Reenactments. I've been to several and the town's behavior where almost everyone attended was very unrealistic. I could continue but unfortunately that would mean crossing the border into spoilersville. In conclusion, I feel that the authors should've taken 3 more weeks to plan out writing this book. Maybe then it would've been a little more unique.

 Lena's behavior at times verged on rude and even abusive. The trantrums she threw were treated by Ethan as if they were no big deal. The damage she inflicted with her powers probably should've been treated as morally wrong. Imagine Lena and Ethan reversed. If Ethan had behaved that way I have a hunch he would've been consiered a bit psychopathic and even abusive at times. I just don't think their relationship would've been thought as romantic as it was.

It was also too long. It could've been 100 pages shorter. Quite frankly many of the books events were unnecessary and verged on boring. The plot wasn't defined enough. The issue I found was that certain parts of the story that should've been a bigger deal were little occurances. If they had been given definition the story would've been so much more interesting. The story was predictable more than a few times and I even think I've predicted a major part of the next book. Also, the writing was often on the brink of awkward. Some of the phrases needed to be given a thorough edit.

The reasoning above was basically why I didn't enjoy this book. Even though I didn't like it, the book definitely had it's good moments which can't be ignored. Some of the character interactions were well done. Although the writing could get awkward, there was times where it shined with brilliance. Finally there was scenes packed with action that were enjoyable.

Hopefully I don't seem to be trying to tear this book down. Because I wasn't. This is a book review and the point of reviewing something is to give an opinion. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion. This is a popular book and it might be of interest to you. Truthfully, I almost didn't post this because I felt guilty for posting such a deprecating review but I'd also feel guilty if I hid the truth. In the end Beautiful Creatures simply wasn't for me. It had it's moments but they were too few and too far between to cause me to like the book.