Beautiful Creaturesby Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Little, Brown (Dec. 2009)
576 pages
YA Supernatural Fiction
Winner of the William C. Morris YA Debut Award
Source: My friend Kim foisted this on me so she could have someone to discuss it with :)
In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.
My thoughts:
I have extremely mixed feelings over this tome of a young adult novel. I usually make the effort to put some distance between a new release with this much hype and my reading of said novel. Unfortunately, I did not give myself enough time with Beautiful Creatures. The book was simply talked up way too much for me to possibly enjoy it as much as I was hoping I would. Here's my bulleted list of irksome findings:
- I found Ethan, the male love interest, to be very feminine and not much like most sixteen year old guys I know or have ever known. Women authors have been known to write believable male characters and vice versa, but Garcia & Stohl did not hit the nail on the head with this one.
- I think I'm a little burned out on the whole supernatural-I'm-mortal-but-the-one-I-love-isn't-what-will-we-ever-do? theme in young adult literature. Did anyone else feel like this was just Bella and Edward in reverse, just a little bit?
~ Read for the 4 Month Challenge ~
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