Book Review: Beautiful Creatures

So today is a review of:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.


And here it is from 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.

And drumroll please...my rating is:

Four stars! 

Let me start off by saying...wow! This book had some awesome points to it. In a short list, those would include characters, setting and plot. But there's a lot more to it than that.

So, here's the awesomeness of this book:

Characters were...wow. I don't even have words. Ethan's need to get out of the small town isn't just told to us. It's shown to us throughout the whole novel when he starts seeing Lena, an outsider. His need to see Lena all the time should almost seem clingy and overpowering to the audience, but it's done in a tasteful and subtle way that allows us to read the book without focusing too much on the relationship. Lena was awesome. She had amazing depth, having seen so much in such a short time in her life. Having lost several relatives and people she loves, she becomes one of the more real characters within the book, even as the other characters try to make her seem like she is unreal, and try to remove her.

The townspeople. I can't even begin to explain my fascination with them. The kids of Jackson High are so, so real. They come across as real small town people, the type that don't like outsiders. The way they treat Lena, the way they try to remove her from their school and their lives and sometimes even treat her as if she really is invisible, is just...wow. I can't even describe how they drew me into the book. The thing that drew me in most about that book really drew me in to read, it was the townspeople.

The small town setting of the book...well, I suppose I said a bunch about it already, but it was awesome. The characters made the setting very real, instead of the other way around. Ms. Garcia and Ms. Stohl really created a very real world. They made the small town intense with small details. Who knew such small details could create such a wonderful world?

Now, on to plot. It took a few chapters for Ms. Garcia and Ms. Stohl to draw me in, however, don't let that be a turn-off. Once you get into this book, I promise, you get into it. The plot was interesting. The book was more character-driven than plot driven, I found, and so I have a little less to say about plot.

Now for some not-so-awesomeness of this book:

There isn't a whole lot for me to comment on for this. Only one thing.

The pacing of the plot could have been sped up. I found sections of the plot really slowed down the story and took away some of the tension. The countdown, for example. It should have been intense, but instead, Ethan was at school, and it wasn't on his mind as much as I felt it should be, and since he wasn't super tense about it, neither was I. Which, of course, slowed down the tension in an area of the book that should have been super tense. Despite that, however, it was an awesome read.

As for personal experiences and connections, I'll tell you right now, I could relate to almost every character in that book in some way, even the bad ones. That's how real and how developed the characters were. I felt Lena's pain of being bullied, having been there before. I understood Ethan's constant disobedience of Amma, because I'm a teenager and I do that on occasion myself (Not often, mom, I promise!). I understood Ethan's father's withdrawal into himself because I've lost people in my life, too. I understand the feeling. Even the minor characters had depth to them. Development depth, anyway, because some of them were very shallow characters. I was able Emily and Savannah's protest against Lena, because there is a part of me somewhere inside that can be shallow, and if I let it out, would probably not like people who are different from me.

So here's my overall opinion. It was a great book, with a great setting, awesome, developed characters and an interesting plot. Should you read it? Yes. No doubt about it.