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A review by laelyn
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh
2.0
I have seen so many good things written about Renée Ahdieh and her beautiful writing and books, so of course I was excited to dive into her work and see what's there. This will not be a very long review because the one big thing that became very clear to me basically the second I started "The Beautiful" ist that I understand why Ahdieh has her fans, but she is not the author for me.
The prose is very, and I mean VERY purple all throughout, and I don't mind a good dose of purple actually, I quite enjoy it. But here, I couldn't even really follow the plot because the writing was distracting and felt, to me, like an example of "trying way too hard to make the writing seem grandiose and elegant" while failing at it. It's not organic, it doesn't serve the story.
The story in this is rather minimal to begin with. There really isn't that much happening, especially in the first half. Add to that my distaste for genuinely every single character - including our protagonist Céline, whose personality consists mostly of being appalled by the injustices and inegality women have to face on about every page because she has the morals of the 21st century while living in the 19th (which, admittedly, she shares with way too many ya historical/historical fantasy protagonists) and acts SO REBELLIOUS because of it. The side characters are barely characters, and the love interest wants to be an alluring bad boy character so badly but he really isn't. The romance lacks a good foundation and actual chemistry.
Basically, I didn't care at all about anyone and anything which disappointed me so much because the premise of this book is so good, actually: 19th century New Orleans and vampires is a delicious combination. But nothing worked for me and I was bored most of the time, starting to skim early on but trying my best to get through it because I WANTED it to get better and wow me.
But as I said, I'm not the target audience and the author's general writing style just doesn't work for me. I cannot give this more than 2 stars, but I did like the setting at least so there's that.
The prose is very, and I mean VERY purple all throughout, and I don't mind a good dose of purple actually, I quite enjoy it. But here, I couldn't even really follow the plot because the writing was distracting and felt, to me, like an example of "trying way too hard to make the writing seem grandiose and elegant" while failing at it. It's not organic, it doesn't serve the story.
The story in this is rather minimal to begin with. There really isn't that much happening, especially in the first half. Add to that my distaste for genuinely every single character - including our protagonist Céline, whose personality consists mostly of being appalled by the injustices and inegality women have to face on about every page because she has the morals of the 21st century while living in the 19th (which, admittedly, she shares with way too many ya historical/historical fantasy protagonists) and acts SO REBELLIOUS because of it. The side characters are barely characters, and the love interest wants to be an alluring bad boy character so badly but he really isn't. The romance lacks a good foundation and actual chemistry.
Basically, I didn't care at all about anyone and anything which disappointed me so much because the premise of this book is so good, actually: 19th century New Orleans and vampires is a delicious combination. But nothing worked for me and I was bored most of the time, starting to skim early on but trying my best to get through it because I WANTED it to get better and wow me.
But as I said, I'm not the target audience and the author's general writing style just doesn't work for me. I cannot give this more than 2 stars, but I did like the setting at least so there's that.