A review by olivegrove
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

2.0

When I first learned about this book I was ALL FOR IT. Sexy vampires in New Orleans? Ummm yes... I am HERE for a revival in vampire romance. I absolutely loved The Vampire Diaries and The Originals so I thought I would really enjoy this book. It was definitely one of my most anticipated reads. Sadly, it was a huge disappointment. The characters were just... flat. There wasn’t any character development, it was tropey as hell, and the villain/entire plot just wasn’t that good. I don’t even mind tropey or overdone stories if they are written well (like Red Queen), but this was not. The book doesn’t even use the word vampire until the very end and even then it was the lamest reveal possibly ever. Other than Celine having an Asian mother, liking to sow and being a ~murderess~ there was absolutely nothing to her. Sebastian was even worse. Just broody and not at all interesting. The whole book was just bits and pieces of other vampire novels put together... and poorly at that. It was just building up to the second book which, quite frankly, I would have been more apt to pick up if there was any action that made sense or was somewhat interesting, any at all, in this book.