Book Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Book Description: 
Is falling in love the beginning . . . or the end?

In Ethan Wate's hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . .

There is a girl. Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head . . . Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes.

There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it's been promised. And no one can stop it.

In the end, there is a grave.

Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.

My Thoughts:
I kind of loved this book. I loved that it was set in the South. I could feel it in my good ol' Southern roots, except that I've never lived in a little backwoods town. I loved that it was written from the perspective of a guy. Most YA novels are written from the girl's perspective and it makes the entire thing feel whiny. This wasn't whiny. No whine. Just "this is what happened and this is what I did because of it." But, you know, better than that. I really liked the characters. Ethan was just a classic nice guy. I mean, who doesn't just love that guy? Admittedly, Lena was a bit dramatic (which is why I'm glad it was written from his pov). But if I was cursed I can't say I wouldn't act the same way. She was pretty cool when she wasn't whining.

I loved that it was clean with very little language issues and even less romantic ones (I'm firmly in the camp that thinks YA should have zero sex scenes. Or at least extremely vague innuendo in lieu of an explicit sex scene). I'll admit that I was wary to read it because there are actually two authors. I was expecting to notice a clear divide in terms of writing style or sections or something, but there was nothing like that. It felt like one author; It was totally seamless writing. In fact, maybe two authors is better. Who knew? The only thing that bugged me was that the ending was a bit confusing. I'm guessing I'll need to read the next one to figure it all out.

Sexual Content: Moderate
Language: Mild
Violence: Mild
Drugs/Alcohol: Mild

 

*Since there was a movie adaptation of this book I feel that I need to address the whole movie thing. It sucks. I read the book before I saw the movie. If I had seen the movie first I most definitely would not have read the book. It's really that terrible. There are so many things I could point out about the movie that were terrible--the casting (except, of course, Emma Thompson; She's amazing), the editing, special effects--but I will only say this: The movie was completely different from the book. Everything about it was different. If those talented movie-making people would only realize once and for all that when they adapt a book it should actually be like the book, I bet they would make better movies. And  a lot more money.