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56 reviews for:
Beautiful Creatures Collection Kami Garcia Margaret Stohl 4 Books Set
Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl
3.61 AVERAGE
56 reviews for:
Beautiful Creatures Collection Kami Garcia Margaret Stohl 4 Books Set
Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl
3.61 AVERAGE
This was the most believable portrayal of awkward and stumbling teenage love that I've seen in one of these Teen/YA Paranormal Romance novels.
However, this story didn't make my heart race with suspense. It was more of a low-key magical mystery with a sense of wonder. Hopefully the sequels will have more of a memorable story.
However, this story didn't make my heart race with suspense. It was more of a low-key magical mystery with a sense of wonder. Hopefully the sequels will have more of a memorable story.
Find more reviews like this at The Literary Phoenix.
Ethan is in love, but Lena's counting down her remaining days.
Nothing ever happens in Gatlin. It's the same sleepy town with the same sleepy people and their Civil War reenactments and cheerleading squads. Nothing happens in Gatlin... until Lena Duchannes moves to town. Suddenly, the weather gets worse than "just" hurricane season and suddenly everyone has their eyes on the mysterious Ravenwood Manor, and Ethan falls in love.
For Lena, the notoriety is the last thing she wants. She just wants to be a normal girl and have friends and go to school. Her birthday draws ever nearer and with it, the dark fate that grips her family. Will she be claimed by Dark or Light? What will her future hold? Her sixteenth birthday will tell her, and she's terrified.
I liked this book more than I expected.
Beautiful Creatures is a huge tome of a book, but despite that, it was a fun read. It's been a while since I've read anything witchy, so perhaps it was just missing in my life. I typically enjoy witch-based books and magical abilities, and it's a bit of a nice change after such a long run of science fiction and dystopias. Lena and Ethan are both perfectly likable as main characters, a little cliched but interesting enough.
The side characters were interesting enough to be recognized as well. Figures like Marian, Macon, and Amma stand out best. It's the villains that were a bit of a disappointment, being neither as horrible nor villainous as advertised.
I liked the ghost story, but there wasn't enough of it.
The beginning of Beautiful Creatures starts telling the story of Genevieve and Ethan, and in the middle of the book, Genevieve's ghost makes an appearance. The spectral figure seemed like she would play perfectly into the story, but the author decided to take things in a different direction and I felt like all the time spent on the history ended up being wasted. I believe the authors used it to illustrate the alignments, but I feel like there was a deeper potential there I wanted to see explored.
All in all, I find it really frustrating when a love story overtakes a deeper plot. Beautiful Creatures is no exception to that rule.
Good, but not great.
This doesn't go on my all time favorites list, but I'll be reading the sequel. I think the story has some potential and I'm interested to see where it goes. That said, I'm not so invested that I will keep reading if book two just ends up being more of the same. I would like to see more into the Caster's world and their abilities, at less about Gatlin High and Lena and Ethan's love story.
Ethan is in love, but Lena's counting down her remaining days.
Nothing ever happens in Gatlin. It's the same sleepy town with the same sleepy people and their Civil War reenactments and cheerleading squads. Nothing happens in Gatlin... until Lena Duchannes moves to town. Suddenly, the weather gets worse than "just" hurricane season and suddenly everyone has their eyes on the mysterious Ravenwood Manor, and Ethan falls in love.
For Lena, the notoriety is the last thing she wants. She just wants to be a normal girl and have friends and go to school. Her birthday draws ever nearer and with it, the dark fate that grips her family. Will she be claimed by Dark or Light? What will her future hold? Her sixteenth birthday will tell her, and she's terrified.
I liked this book more than I expected.
Beautiful Creatures is a huge tome of a book, but despite that, it was a fun read. It's been a while since I've read anything witchy, so perhaps it was just missing in my life. I typically enjoy witch-based books and magical abilities, and it's a bit of a nice change after such a long run of science fiction and dystopias. Lena and Ethan are both perfectly likable as main characters, a little cliched but interesting enough.
The side characters were interesting enough to be recognized as well. Figures like Marian, Macon, and Amma stand out best. It's the villains that were a bit of a disappointment, being neither as horrible nor villainous as advertised.
I liked the ghost story, but there wasn't enough of it.
The beginning of Beautiful Creatures starts telling the story of Genevieve and Ethan, and in the middle of the book, Genevieve's ghost makes an appearance. The spectral figure seemed like she would play perfectly into the story, but the author decided to take things in a different direction and I felt like all the time spent on the history ended up being wasted. I believe the authors used it to illustrate the alignments, but I feel like there was a deeper potential there I wanted to see explored.
All in all, I find it really frustrating when a love story overtakes a deeper plot. Beautiful Creatures is no exception to that rule.
Good, but not great.
This doesn't go on my all time favorites list, but I'll be reading the sequel. I think the story has some potential and I'm interested to see where it goes. That said, I'm not so invested that I will keep reading if book two just ends up being more of the same. I would like to see more into the Caster's world and their abilities, at less about Gatlin High and Lena and Ethan's love story.
Read in 2010: Four Stars
Read in 2013: 3.5 Stars
Review to come
Read in 2013: 3.5 Stars
Review to come
Ethan Wate has been having dreams, strange dreams, and so when the girl who has been featuring heavily finds her way into his high school, he's a bit freaked out to say the least.
I saw the trailer, I like the Deep South, so I picked up the book. Witches (Casters, I know) have never been my favourite supernatural element because I always feel like problems are too easily solved - oh, there's an old spell book which just HAPPENS to have the exact reversing spell that I needed - but I really liked the claiming idea so I decided to go ahead anyway. I can't say I was wholly disappointed.
The setting lived up to my expectations, I absolutely loved Gatlin with all the Confederate references and the DAR because I'm a total nerd about that. Furthermore, periphery characters interested me a lot, Macon and Ridley in particular, which really leads me to my main problem with this book - the main characters. Ethan was the worst, I don't think I've ever met a boy who talks (or thinks) that much like a girl. But, above that, his incessant mumblings about how much better he and his family was just annoyed me beyond words. Yes, his parents have a college education and write books, yes the DAR and Civil War reenactments are pretty backwards, but he just refuses to accept that he is just as human as they are.
Lena wasn't as bad, but I found her pretty bland, aside from when she got angry which was when things got interesting. Again, Ridley was just so much more interesting and I wish I had seen more of her character instead.
The ending was interesting enough for me to probably pick up the sequel, but felt like it was designed to rely upon the next book a little too heavily. I think it's always important to come away from a book as part of a series feeling that it could have stood alone, particularly if it is the first one, but this one definitely didn't feel that way. The whole thing already feels like the series will just be building towards the final book and that it's just been spilt into separate novels for ease of holding. Nevertheless, I will probably watch the film and pick up the others some time in the summer.
I saw the trailer, I like the Deep South, so I picked up the book. Witches (Casters, I know) have never been my favourite supernatural element because I always feel like problems are too easily solved - oh, there's an old spell book which just HAPPENS to have the exact reversing spell that I needed - but I really liked the claiming idea so I decided to go ahead anyway. I can't say I was wholly disappointed.
The setting lived up to my expectations, I absolutely loved Gatlin with all the Confederate references and the DAR because I'm a total nerd about that. Furthermore, periphery characters interested me a lot, Macon and Ridley in particular, which really leads me to my main problem with this book - the main characters. Ethan was the worst, I don't think I've ever met a boy who talks (or thinks) that much like a girl. But, above that, his incessant mumblings about how much better he and his family was just annoyed me beyond words. Yes, his parents have a college education and write books, yes the DAR and Civil War reenactments are pretty backwards, but he just refuses to accept that he is just as human as they are.
Lena wasn't as bad, but I found her pretty bland, aside from when she got angry which was when things got interesting. Again, Ridley was just so much more interesting and I wish I had seen more of her character instead.
The ending was interesting enough for me to probably pick up the sequel, but felt like it was designed to rely upon the next book a little too heavily. I think it's always important to come away from a book as part of a series feeling that it could have stood alone, particularly if it is the first one, but this one definitely didn't feel that way. The whole thing already feels like the series will just be building towards the final book and that it's just been spilt into separate novels for ease of holding. Nevertheless, I will probably watch the film and pick up the others some time in the summer.
This was an amazing book. The characters were well rounded and formed. The storyline was unbelievably good and left me wanting more. Definitely a must read for anyone who loves supernatural stories.
