Beautiful Creatures (2009)

beautiful creatures
margaret stohl and kami garcia

read: february 2010

recommendation: worth its weight in pages.

"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 Duchannes moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them."

I don't know what I liked about this that other people didn't, and if I was just in a different mood/mind place when I picked it up, but I had a very hard time putting it down.

Yes, it's fat. It's a thick book with lots of characters and world-building, and yet the setting is this tiny town of Gaitlin, where the past is just as important as the present. Despite the length of the book, about half-way through, I was totally hooked. I couldn't put it down. I truly liked the "Casters" world - where almost every paranormal thing ever is somehow in the mix. It provided a nice break from the usual paranormal YA.

Characters that were my favorite: I loved Macon. I loved Amma. Their stories, their history, and the way they interact with the new generation - these things made me really happy and really involved in the story. I mean, Lena was kind of cool, but she wasn't . . . I don't know. I like very strong female characters, and Lena wasn't exactly the most active heroine anywhere. However, she isn't the worst. I did like her. And Link.

I liked the heaviness of the setting. To be honest, I don't think I've ever read anything that qualifies as "southern gothic" so I don't know how accurate that part was, but i definitely really LIKED the setting. I felt the town and the people in it, i felt like I could almost smell the trees and the weather. I could see Amma in the mist with her chicken bones, and Macon, and the house that makes everyone suspicious of Lena.

Looking back on it, I can see parts that I would have edited it out, or asked the authors to make tighter. (The song, for example, and the initial dreams don't exactly have a conclusion, there's so much about Emily - and we don't even know really what happened there.)

I didn't realize it was a series until the last page. Because this is a first book, I have hope the second installment will have a tighter plot and retain the visceral quality of the writing. The world building was lovely, and I do want to go back there.

And really, I had a very hard time putting the book down. Even with the length. But then again, perhaps the fact that I spent a lot of time reading and loving books that are considered "dense" by most people (Conrad's Heart of Darkness, all of Faulkner, etc.) that I wasn't turned off by the sheer size of the book. This is definitely a book that is worth the time it takes to read (though it *is* heavy to carry around!) and I can't wait to read the sequel.