Book Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Release Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 576

Book Source: Bought

Summary:

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.
(From beautifulcreaturesthebook.com)
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Opening Beautiful Creatures is like setting out on an adventure, and like most adventures it begins someplace boring--in this case the first day of school in fictional Gatlin, South Carolina, a small town that Ethan Wate, the main character and first person narrator of Beautiful Creatures describes as "the epicenter of the middle of nowhere." Luckily, Gatlin is anything but boring for readers: bursting with atmosphere and good humor, this book is a vacation. The descriptions of this old Southern town are beautiful and utterly satisfying. Take the description of Gatlin's library:

It was a two-story venerable Victorian, old and weathered with peeling white paint and decades worth of vines sleeping along the doors and windows. It smelled like aging wood and creosote, plastic book covers, and old paper. Old paper, which my mom used to say was the smell of time itself.

If it's not like being there, it makes one want to be there.

Gatlin possesses more small town charms than its architecture, however, and one of them is a small town attitude:

In Gatlin, the first day of school never really changes. The teachers, who all knew you from church, decided if you were stupid or smart by the time you were in kindergarten. I was smart because my parents were professors. Link [Ethan's friend] was stupid, because he crunched up the pages of the Good Book during Scripture Chase, and threw up once during the Christmas pageant.

Ethan Wate's narration is nothing if not humorous, and Ethan's got great voice. I enjoyed listening to him tell his story.

When I first picked up Beautiful Creatures I wasn't so sure about the male narrator although now I wouldn't have it any other way. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl flip the gender roles of YA paranormal romance successfully, and they change more than the standard female narrator. The mysterious, powerful new person in town is not a handsome boy, but a beautiful girl--Lena Duchannes. The result is a believable, enjoyable romance that unfolds in a realistic teenage timeline.

Beyond the romance lies magic, a sprawling plot, and a large cast of characters. One of my favorites is Amma, Ethan's housekeeper/cook/surrogate mother and tarot card reader extraordinaire. Ethan describes Amma's superstitious ways:

Sometimes I'd find one of her homemade charms in my sock drawer or hanging above the door of my father's study. I had only asked what they were for once. My dad teased Amma whenever he found one, but I noticed that he never took any of them down. "Better safe than sorry." I guess he meant safe from Amma, who could make you plenty sorry.

Amma is one fierce lady.

As far as the plot goes, Garcia and Stohl are fearless and Beautiful Creatures is unashamedly fantastical. Many unexplained events occur in the novel: disbelief must be suspended, and it's not hard. At 576 pages, Beautiful Creatures is a gorgeous but long read, and I alternated between page flipping suspense and boredom, after which I'd come back to the book and zoom through the pages until I became bored again, rinse and repeat. There's so much in the novel that it's definitely going in my rereading pile.

On the negative side, the school scenes in Beautiful Creatures verge on stereotypical, and there are a few trite and painful high school moments and typical high school characters, among them the caricatured popular clique. Also, the storytelling is confusing at times--the authors let readers put things together for themselves, and not just sweeping things--little story events where the sentence doesn't lay out all that happened. Being trusted was nice but left me feeling like I missed something more than once.

Beautiful Creatures is a fun, involved read with a quick ending and a cliffhanger that left me wishing for a time machine so I could read the sequel NOW. It's a skillfully told tale about a boy, a girl, their families, a curse, and discovering one's capacity for both love and destruction. I recommend reading it, and trying an excerpt before making the decision to borrow or buy.

The book trailer:

Find out more at somelovesarecursed.com