Book Review :: Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl
Series: Caster Chronicles #1
on December 1st 2009
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 563
Goodreads

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.

Last updated on 19 January 2022

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Did Beautiful Creatures live up to the hype?

Beautiful Creatures follows the story of Ethan, a teenage boy in the town of Gatlin and his relationship with the mysterious new girl, Lena Duchannes. Lena is the niece of the town weirdo, Macon Ravenwood. When she arrives in town to come and live with him, the town already hates her and wants her gone. The only person who doesn’t, is Ethan. They become friends…and then strange things start happening.

It turns out that Lena is actually a Caster. It’s like a witch…but not really. Her whole family are Casters, and when the children in her family turn 16, they either turn light…or they turn dark.

The story is a build-up to Lena’s 16th birthday, and with family gatherings, funny best friends, school dances, secret underground libraries, an ancient powerful book, creepy flashbacks, a destiny that they can’t seem to escape and various magical happenings, this book was a great read.

Looking at the reviews from other people on Goodreads, I think you either love this book, or you hate it. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. I, for one, loved it. I think it was a great story, with great characters and a sense of ‘oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen next?’.

It’s written in first person, and I was a little scared when I saw it was written by not one, but two authors, but Garcia and Stohl manage to write in a way that you forget about it and become engrossed in the story.

It’s quite a lengthy book – 563 pages – but I think it needed to be that long, to create the scene and the story, and to build it up in the way that it did. The end of the book was really dramatic and exciting, and certainly left on a *gasp* note. Can’t wait to read the next one, and at the moment I’m thinking I’ll just buy it, rather than wait for the library copy. It’ll be a good series, I think, to read again.