Beautiful Creatures
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.
Beautiful Creatures is the first book in a four book series known as The Castor Chronicles, and is co-written by the author Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. Ethan Wate lives in the small, boring town of Gatlin, South Carolina. Ethan is dealing with a family death and just wants to escape his small town life. Then Lena Duhannes moves to Gatlin. Lena wants to be normal, everywhere she has lived she has felt like she does not belong. Lena struggles with her abilities and Ethan then finds himself interested in her despite all the talk from his classmates and from his nanny to stay away from Lena. Ethan takes an interest in Lena. Ethan tries to pursue Lena but she s him it's best he stays away from her. Ethan is later told in the book by Lena that she is a witch, just like the rest of her family and when she turns sixteen it will determine whether Lena is a good witch or evil. Lena is terrified that she will turn dark and it will do nothing but destroy the boy she loves.
Beautiful Creatures reads like a replica of Twilight. The book is told from Ethan's point of view, since Beautiful Creatures is written by females, it does not feel like you're in the head of a teenage boy. the only difference in the novel being that the paranormal love interest is a witch/castor and not a vampire. Garcia's agent is also the same agent who represents Stephenie Meyer, and Beautiful Creatures is published by the same publisher of Twilight it should have clicked how similar that book was. so when you are reading the book, you start to feel like you are reading Twilight all over again. When I first saw the book, needless to say and to be perfectly honest, I thought this book was going to be horrible which is why I didn't want to read it when I saw it at the bookstore for the first time because it's co-written. In most cases in terms of co-authored books, one of the writers will write one book one writer will write a chapter and then the other author would then begin working on the next chapter, causing the book to make absolutely no sense causing the readers to get confused.
Beautiful Creatures had a lot of issues. The book is extremely long. There is a rule when it comes to word count when writing a books. Most young adult books run within the word count of 45,000-65,000 words, now 45,000 words is considered a novella. The only way an author can go beyond this rule is if the book is paranormal, science-fiction, or urban fantasy in which the general word count could range anywhere from 65,000-90,000 words. A debut author should not break this rule when it comes to their first time for publication. J.K. Rowling broke this rule, but the world and the stories she crafted were phenomenal and readers wanted more. There were also parts in the first book that so bland and overly descriptive tends to make you want to put the book down. There were also certain parts that should have been cut out of the book but it's mostly on fault of the editors. When I was reading, I found myself skimming through pages, or falling asleep there were pages within the book that were bland. it's evident that chunks should have been cut out of the book. Since the book series was published from the publisher as Twilight, the editor should have caught this along with the fact that the whole beginning of the book is just the background of the story, shouldn't the background of the story be the synopsis? Even then the publisher could have pulled the first hundred pages of the book and made it into a prequel story to sell before releasing the actual series. Then the characters tend to feel unrealistic. I will also admit I was not very impressed with this book, but I want to find out more about what's going to happen to the characters.
I loved the chemistry between Lena and Ethan. and I loved the books! And here is the trailer for the movie! I'm so excited to see it!
