{DNF Review}: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures

by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Series: Caster Chronicles #1

Release Date: December 1, 2009

by Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 592

Links: 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. 

For some reason, I wasn't a fan of this book. It started out totally awesome. I was thinking, "Yes!! This is going to be an awesome paranormal romance" but my excitement faded when I got about halfway through the book, and as I found myself getting busier with school and whatnot, I just kind of forgot about it, and every time I tried to pick it back up, I'd put it down again and it became like a chore to read it. Which I hate when I'm reading books. 

I rarely never finish books, and I thought that if I didn't finish a book I'd definitely give it 1 star, but it gets 1.5 stars because it started out so awesome. I can't really write a review on this book since I didn't finish it (it seems dishonest, almost, because I don't know how it ended), but I would recommend giving it a try if you like the sound of it. I guess it just wasn't my book.

I think the writing should get some points, because that's the thing that kept me going for the 300 or so pages that I did read. You see a lot of paranormal romance books that are written atrociously, and I hate that. But the writing in this one was really good. It flowed nicely, and was very fluid and descriptive. 

I didn't like Ethan as a character. He seemed kind of unrealistic, if you know what I mean. I don't talk to 16-year-old boys very often, so I don't really know what they're like, but the way he described things, the things that he noticed, didn't seem relevant to the thoughts of a 16 year old boy. I might be totally wrong here, but it's just a wild guess. 

I also wasn't a huge fan of Lena. In a book like this, the main girl character has to have other qualities besides beautiful, powerful, and alluring. I found Lena (in the part that I read) to be kind of wimpy and weak, and I absolutely loathe that in girl main characters.

I did like Ridley though. She was such a bad-ass bitch. I totally loved her and felt like cheering every time she said something.

When I rated this book I kept going back and forth between 1 and 2 stars--literally. I floated my mouse over the one star rating, and it looked too harsh, so I shifted it back to 2 stars, but then I thought 2 stars was too generous. But, I like to be more generous than harsh in reviews, so I'm giving it 2 stars. 

I'm going to see the movie, because I really do want to know how it ends. And I might try to read it again sometime. 

So even though Beautiful Creatures wasn't exactly my favorite book, it totally might be yours so check it out if you'd like! I hate writing reviews for books that I didn't finish, but I thought I'd say some things about the part that I did read.

1.5/5 stars