Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, 1)
Secrets, strangers, and curses will lure you into the first book of the instant New York Times bestselling contemporary gothic fantasy series, where a stirring paranormal romance unfolds in an isolated southern town.
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.
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.
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Community Reviews
Where do I even begin to compla-er I mean discuss this book⦠(¬д¬ã)
Well, the first couple chapters were alright. Minus the named chapters I keep running into.
It was refreshing to read from the Ethanâs POV. He wasnât terribly irritating⦠at first. Heâs quietly arrogant, but Iâve lived in that situation before. Small town drama, you fit in but you donât. However, for as many times as he mentions his professor parents, youâd think he wouldnât use the word âstupidestâ in every other chapter. Also, Iâm pretty sure Lenaâs already told Ethan âNoâ or âGo Awayâ, one way or another about 15 times, but heâs not stopping. Determined or creepy?
Even the romance was ludicrous. Not exactly insta-love, but close. Insta-weird is more like it. Apparently their teenage love conquered all because Ethan basically ignored/neglected everyone who ever mattered to him for Lena. He didnât need reasons, he had DREAMS.
Now for the somehow endless powers that Casters seem to possess. Apparently Lena is all powerful, or will be soon. Oh, and theyâre telepathic? â¦oh come on. Neither one of them have even said anything about it. Ok, right, because stuff like that happens all the time to everyone right? Oh but when they time travel, yeah, they talk about that.
The small references to To Kill a Mockingbird were well placed but slightly overused. I think itâs great to use other stories as influence but this book felt like a giant melting pot of literary doom. They even had a Carrie moment. Did I mention that yet? You know, THE Carrie moment. Not the SatC Carrie either, the 1976 Carrie. School dance, liquid dumped on head, dance ruined by telekinetic powers.
So mix a little Carrie with Twilight and Harry Potter, throw in a pinch of the bottom line from every Disney Princess movie and
ã¾ã»ã(*ï¾ï½°^)ï¾ï½¡ï½¥ï½¡ï½¥ï¾ï½¥:*｡･:*:ï½¥ï¾ââ you have Beautiful Creatures.
If that sounds like something you would like, enjoy. I wonât be reading any more of it though, thatâs for sure.
Oh jeez. Where to start. Well, first of all, the reviewer quoted on the back cover who said that Twilight fans would love this book was right. That's because it basically was Twilight.
Let's do a quick side-by-side comparison:
1. Uninteresting protagonist. Check!
2. Insta-love that's completely inane and unexplainable. Check!
3. Small, ignorant town. Check!
4. Townsies are accepting of protagonist (if not secondary protagonist). Check!
5. Untold (literal and figurative) danger if these two kids get together. Check!
6. Bizarre supernatural goings-on that are not immediately revealed. Check!
7. Unsupportive dad, out of the picture mom. Check!
8. Cast of family characters, some good, some bad. Check!
9. Time is running out. Check.
10. Way too many pages with not enough plot to smear over a piece of toast. Check!
As if Twilight wasn't bad enough to deal with the first time, this book adds some of its own horrors to the pile. Even if these have been mentioned before, here's what I noticed:
1. OMG. Mentioning great works of literature or great authors in your piece of fiction does not suddenly elevate it to the status of literature or anything resembling it. If you make reference to To Kill a Mockingbird, Charles Bukowski, or T.S. Eliot one more time, I will scream. And no, To Kill a Mockingbird is NOT an original choice of book. For goodness sakes, I'm not sure there isn't a high school in the United States that doesn't have this on a reading list somewhere.
2. If you're going to make your protagonist male, at least make him an enjoyable person. As it was, Ethan Wate was stupid, clumsy, naive, and completely unbelievable as a boy. I hate to say it, but the only boys I knew who were that aware of color were homosexual. And no offense intended to either gays or straights. That's just what I've noticed in my personal experience. Now, having said all that, it didn't really bother me that he was an unconvincing male. I'm easy. What bothered me was his behavior. All he ever said was, "Don't worry, Lena, it'll be alright. We'll make it through somehow, even if I don't have a darn clue how". And he was very patronizing. He would try and baby her over and over again and wanted his babying to count for something. And then he was whiney. If Lena for some reason wanted to be in a bad mood, he would whine to her about how she should be happy. Plus, he was really into telling her how to live her life, if memory serves. And, opposite of Edward and Bella (or is it?), he was the one who was completely useless and needed saving time and time again.
3. What boring characters. I suppose they must seem "sooo different" for an apparently ignorant, backwards town like little ol' Gatlin, but to me they seemed painfully familiar. Oh, you claim to read? That makes you so different. Oh, you're a decent person and not a blithering idiot? How unusual! Really? We're supposed to believe in this town that everybody is secretly only two steps away from being a KKK member and the only decent people in it are limited to the solid number of four? I am not buying it. And what a trivial way to get into a relationship. "Well, I guess we already spend most of our time together, so why not make it official?" How awkward.
Finally, 4. SPOILERS. What a dumb climax. There was practically no climax, falling action, or resolution. What the hell just happened? They certainly didn't say much of anything for sure about Lena's fate. Just hinted at it as subtly as a hippopotamus. They are not big on subtlety. All this book, all these questions, leading up to the big question of Lena's claiming. Then, there's fragmented, limited information, and somehow everything just works out. But it's all kind of blurry. Listen, I know it's the big thing these days to have a series and to stretch out trifling plotlines over numerous cumbersome books, but come on. You can't just give a little resolution? Not just even a little? Apparently not.
Overall, this book was just very blah. It's not the first like this, so there isn't the outrage factor (i.e. "How on Earth could people like this? It's so bad!"). We're over that now. We know it's a trend. But it wasn't good, either. It was too long, too unwieldy, the plot was too thin, the characters too trite. Will I pick up the next one? Not unless I'm a true glutton for punishment. But I read the first one, so I must be. Ha. If you want something vaguely pointless and just dumb to relieve the pressures of everyday living from your brain, then please read this. If you killed too many brain cells reading Twilight, skip it.
Let's do a quick side-by-side comparison:
1. Uninteresting protagonist. Check!
2. Insta-love that's completely inane and unexplainable. Check!
3. Small, ignorant town. Check!
4. Townsies are accepting of protagonist (if not secondary protagonist). Check!
5. Untold (literal and figurative) danger if these two kids get together. Check!
6. Bizarre supernatural goings-on that are not immediately revealed. Check!
7. Unsupportive dad, out of the picture mom. Check!
8. Cast of family characters, some good, some bad. Check!
9. Time is running out. Check.
10. Way too many pages with not enough plot to smear over a piece of toast. Check!
As if Twilight wasn't bad enough to deal with the first time, this book adds some of its own horrors to the pile. Even if these have been mentioned before, here's what I noticed:
1. OMG. Mentioning great works of literature or great authors in your piece of fiction does not suddenly elevate it to the status of literature or anything resembling it. If you make reference to To Kill a Mockingbird, Charles Bukowski, or T.S. Eliot one more time, I will scream. And no, To Kill a Mockingbird is NOT an original choice of book. For goodness sakes, I'm not sure there isn't a high school in the United States that doesn't have this on a reading list somewhere.
2. If you're going to make your protagonist male, at least make him an enjoyable person. As it was, Ethan Wate was stupid, clumsy, naive, and completely unbelievable as a boy. I hate to say it, but the only boys I knew who were that aware of color were homosexual. And no offense intended to either gays or straights. That's just what I've noticed in my personal experience. Now, having said all that, it didn't really bother me that he was an unconvincing male. I'm easy. What bothered me was his behavior. All he ever said was, "Don't worry, Lena, it'll be alright. We'll make it through somehow, even if I don't have a darn clue how". And he was very patronizing. He would try and baby her over and over again and wanted his babying to count for something. And then he was whiney. If Lena for some reason wanted to be in a bad mood, he would whine to her about how she should be happy. Plus, he was really into telling her how to live her life, if memory serves. And, opposite of Edward and Bella (or is it?), he was the one who was completely useless and needed saving time and time again.
3. What boring characters. I suppose they must seem "sooo different" for an apparently ignorant, backwards town like little ol' Gatlin, but to me they seemed painfully familiar. Oh, you claim to read? That makes you so different. Oh, you're a decent person and not a blithering idiot? How unusual! Really? We're supposed to believe in this town that everybody is secretly only two steps away from being a KKK member and the only decent people in it are limited to the solid number of four? I am not buying it. And what a trivial way to get into a relationship. "Well, I guess we already spend most of our time together, so why not make it official?" How awkward.
Finally, 4. SPOILERS. What a dumb climax. There was practically no climax, falling action, or resolution. What the hell just happened? They certainly didn't say much of anything for sure about Lena's fate. Just hinted at it as subtly as a hippopotamus. They are not big on subtlety. All this book, all these questions, leading up to the big question of Lena's claiming. Then, there's fragmented, limited information, and somehow everything just works out. But it's all kind of blurry. Listen, I know it's the big thing these days to have a series and to stretch out trifling plotlines over numerous cumbersome books, but come on. You can't just give a little resolution? Not just even a little? Apparently not.
Overall, this book was just very blah. It's not the first like this, so there isn't the outrage factor (i.e. "How on Earth could people like this? It's so bad!"). We're over that now. We know it's a trend. But it wasn't good, either. It was too long, too unwieldy, the plot was too thin, the characters too trite. Will I pick up the next one? Not unless I'm a true glutton for punishment. But I read the first one, so I must be. Ha. If you want something vaguely pointless and just dumb to relieve the pressures of everyday living from your brain, then please read this. If you killed too many brain cells reading Twilight, skip it.
I wanted to the see movie. So I bought the book to read it first. I just finished it. 40 minutes before I'm supposed to go out with a friend and watch the film. I am bad ass. haha.
I love it. I was hooked from the start. I really hope the movie doesn't ruin it for me.
Now I need to go out and get book two. I can't wait.
I love it. I was hooked from the start. I really hope the movie doesn't ruin it for me.
Now I need to go out and get book two. I can't wait.
Lena would be claimed by either the light or the dark on her sixteenth birthday. She believed it would be by the dark. The boy of the book Ethan was determined to prevent it from happening and losing her.
What bugged me the most was the adults. The ones who knew what was happening had more information than Lena or Ethan, but they refused to share. It was "all for the kids protection", but once the information was out it was clear it would have been better if Lena had known all of it before. The more I think about it, the lack of knowledge was a literary device for the authors to not give away too much early in the story. Since I was fully aware of that it got on my nerves even more.
The rest of the adults were easily swayed. They were willing to persecute a 16 year old girl just because she was different. It was almost understandable for her fellow classmates to treat her with contempt, cliche, but understandable. The adults shouldn't have turned that fast or that hard against her with so little provocation. I also had a problem with Ethan's father. Okay, yes he was in mourning and depressed, but despite that he had a child who had lost his mother and because his father shut down he ended up losing both his parents. The father should have at least been there enough to actually take an interest in what was happening in his sons life.
I was weirdly surprised the book was told from Ethan's point of view. I guess I shouldn't have been, from the beginning he was the character who knew the least about what was happening. I think since a lot of the books I have read recently the narrator has been female it was refreshing and something that took me a while to get used to.
My favorite aspect of Lena's character was her constant writing. I was even good when we, the audience, didn't actually know what she was writing about. My favorite aspect of Ethan's character was his unwavering devotion towards Lena. I liked Boo Radley probably just because he was the animal of the book. I liked Link because he was the humor within the story, I did think his character could have been more fleshed out.
What bugged me the most was the adults. The ones who knew what was happening had more information than Lena or Ethan, but they refused to share. It was "all for the kids protection", but once the information was out it was clear it would have been better if Lena had known all of it before. The more I think about it, the lack of knowledge was a literary device for the authors to not give away too much early in the story. Since I was fully aware of that it got on my nerves even more.
The rest of the adults were easily swayed. They were willing to persecute a 16 year old girl just because she was different. It was almost understandable for her fellow classmates to treat her with contempt, cliche, but understandable. The adults shouldn't have turned that fast or that hard against her with so little provocation. I also had a problem with Ethan's father. Okay, yes he was in mourning and depressed, but despite that he had a child who had lost his mother and because his father shut down he ended up losing both his parents. The father should have at least been there enough to actually take an interest in what was happening in his sons life.
I was weirdly surprised the book was told from Ethan's point of view. I guess I shouldn't have been, from the beginning he was the character who knew the least about what was happening. I think since a lot of the books I have read recently the narrator has been female it was refreshing and something that took me a while to get used to.
My favorite aspect of Lena's character was her constant writing. I was even good when we, the audience, didn't actually know what she was writing about. My favorite aspect of Ethan's character was his unwavering devotion towards Lena. I liked Boo Radley probably just because he was the animal of the book. I liked Link because he was the humor within the story, I did think his character could have been more fleshed out.
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