Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures sees the budding romance between small-town boy Ethan Wate and the new and mysterious girl, Lena Duchannes.
As the niece of notorious ‘shut-in’ resident, Macon Ravenwood, Lena is instantly branded with the oddball iron by all but Ethan, who simply knows her as the girl of his dreams. Literally.
A ‘caster,’ Lena counts down to her sixteenth birthday when, in accordance to her family tradition, she will be claimed for either the ‘dark’ or the ‘light.’ And the story deals with the strong connection between Ethan and Lena as they both strive for a loophole in the rules that will allow Lena her own choice.

Don’t you just love when the setting of a novel becomes a character in its own right? If you answered ‘yes’ then I agree. Gatlin is described in such detail that you dream about the place! Or I did, at least.
The continuing referencing to ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ fitted perfectly as I couldn’t help but think Gatlin was a lot like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ in the sense that what you see on the surface of Gatlin is not what lies at its heart. Just as in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ the perspective of a young girl’s (Scout) narration doesn’t really see the true essence of the events around her. She sees it all through innocent eyes.
And we see Gatlin through the naive eyes of Ethan.

I also found it to be a nice change, having a YA supernatural tale told by the lead male character. I wonder if it would have worked as well, or been as interesting if it was told in Lena’s voice?
I never did completely warm to Lena. The term ‘mountain out of a molehill’ sprung to mind when she was seemingly being near-on constant angsty. Yes, she had reason, but continually griping on about it doesn’t endear you to a reader, (or perhaps just not to this reader in particular?) So I was pleased we didn’t get the inner workings of her mind for the whole novel, and instead it was shifted to Ethan who humanizes the whole story wonderfully.

As a history buff I did love all the Civil War snippets within the story, but that said, one of my few qualms with the book was the length. It did at times feel bulky and desperately in need of more editing.

Another issue I had was with the portrayal of female characters. An entire town, and not one teenage girl in it who had a backbone? Not one speaks up against Savannah. I find that hard to believe. The only strong young female, aside from Lena, we are fully introduced to is Ridley, and we seem to be pushed towards disliking her because she acts and dresses seductively.
Ethan’s attitude towards the other girls at the dance is shameful. Yes, he has a right to be angry, and dislike them for his treatment of himself and Lena. But no Ethan! You have no right whatsoever to judge other people for what they wear! How dare you use the ‘s’ word!

That all said, I really enjoyed it and have high hopes for the movie adaptation. I unfortunately didn’t catch it in the cinema, but I think it is out on DVD this weekend so I am going to buy it, watch it, and wag my finger at the book/film differences. That’ll be something to look forward too.

Then who knows, if I manage to get down my sizable ‘to read’ pile of books, I may just add the rest of the series to it. I would like to know just how this saga ends.