Thursday, October 21, 2010

"Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Three Stars

Ethan Wate is about to meet the girl of his dreams. Literally. The girl from his nightmares has just walked into his high school. The small southern town of Gatlin doesn’t like outsiders and they quickly let Lena know that she is definitely an outsider. It’s all made worse by the fact that she has moved in with her uncle, the notorious town recluse, at the oldest and most dilapidated plantation in town.

As Ethan tries to be friends with Lena and still fit in to the familiar world he knows,  he slowly starts to learn that his boring hometown, where everyone knows everything and nothing ever changes, is hiding some pretty big secrets of its own. Secrets that reach into his own family. Family both living and dead.

Southern Gothic. The name of the genre creates a mystery and magic all its own that I don’t even want to try to resist. Sometimes I swear I should have been born in the south. Maybe in another life.

I gave this book three stars. I enjoyed it, it was a fun read, but didn’t completely draw me in to the point where I couldn’t put it down. Gatlin is the perfect southern town and all of the characters play their roles to perfection, from Ethan’s three great-aunts who are all Southern Belle perfection to his best friend's mama who won’t let them read Harry Potter because it’s the devil. My hang up was that I just never got completely lost in the story or some of the characters.

I did like the book and thought it was fun. The authors take a new look at the YA Paranormal genre with some new twists on the traditional baddies and there are two characters that I’m really curious to see what lies in store for them, or what they have lying in store for the others. I think I know where their alliances lie, but they just might surprise me.

Book Two in The Caster Chronicles (the series title) just came out last week and I am looking forward to heading south and catching up with my two favorites, who are not the main characters in case you were wondering. I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just say this, Amma kinda scares me and I totally love her for it.

Be watching for the review of book two, “Beautiful Creatures”.

No comments:

Post a Comment