Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Steph's Rating: 1 star
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Little Brown and Co.
Publication Date: December 1st, 2009
Pages: 563
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
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.
Steph's Review:
It was pretty hard to get through the 300 or so pages of 550 that I
actually read. The plot isn't terrible I guess, but it was just so, so
epically SLOW. I could not finish this book--which is a good 550 pages
of super fluff (couldn't finish = 1 star).
This probably would've been a good book if the authors crunched down a little and perhaps condensed this book into just the plot and the things related to it instead of all these "and the rest of the week/month was uneventful" pages. Is this Twilight or something? Please. Just not for me, though I'm sure a lot of people will love this book. Someone else could say the the fluff helps prolong the suspense, but it was too much of it for me because it just left me bored and unexcited.
Why I couldn't finish/my problems with it:
1. Slowness: Nothing happens in the 1st half, and I just gave up on reading it 3/4 of the way through. You literally don't find out anything about what Lena is until halfway of an excessively long book for the plot it is covering. It would've been more interesting if the big plot points weren't spaced out with chapters and chapters of boring and uninteresting narration.
2. Characters: I don't really like the narrator voice. Ethan's not very cool, and not alpha-like in my opinion. Lena just bores me. I couldn't warm up to either of them even though I tried. I have no idea what Ethan sees in her, just like how I don't understand how every hot guy in Twilight was chasing after that plain old Bella's heart.
3. Insta-love: As soon as Lena and Ethan see each other, they are just drawn together and intrigue each other for like no reason. I am not a fan of couples that are just haphazardly slapped together with no basis for their love. It was kind of cheesy and sappy too in my opinion.
4. Plot: Pretty uninteresting to me, but that's probably related to the slowness. When I actually read through something major, I honestly forgot what the one before it was. I found myself skipping a lot of pages, lines, paragraphs, etc.
I read this for the Beautiful Creatures movie, and I ended up not liking it. I'm not really sure if I'm going to see the movie now either. I definitely won't be reading the rest of the series. Though I didn't like it, I can see a lot of stuff true romantics would like in this. I think it had potential to be better, but just a no from me. I only recommend this to super Twilight fans.
This probably would've been a good book if the authors crunched down a little and perhaps condensed this book into just the plot and the things related to it instead of all these "and the rest of the week/month was uneventful" pages. Is this Twilight or something? Please. Just not for me, though I'm sure a lot of people will love this book. Someone else could say the the fluff helps prolong the suspense, but it was too much of it for me because it just left me bored and unexcited.
Why I couldn't finish/my problems with it:
1. Slowness: Nothing happens in the 1st half, and I just gave up on reading it 3/4 of the way through. You literally don't find out anything about what Lena is until halfway of an excessively long book for the plot it is covering. It would've been more interesting if the big plot points weren't spaced out with chapters and chapters of boring and uninteresting narration.
2. Characters: I don't really like the narrator voice. Ethan's not very cool, and not alpha-like in my opinion. Lena just bores me. I couldn't warm up to either of them even though I tried. I have no idea what Ethan sees in her, just like how I don't understand how every hot guy in Twilight was chasing after that plain old Bella's heart.
3. Insta-love: As soon as Lena and Ethan see each other, they are just drawn together and intrigue each other for like no reason. I am not a fan of couples that are just haphazardly slapped together with no basis for their love. It was kind of cheesy and sappy too in my opinion.
4. Plot: Pretty uninteresting to me, but that's probably related to the slowness. When I actually read through something major, I honestly forgot what the one before it was. I found myself skipping a lot of pages, lines, paragraphs, etc.
I read this for the Beautiful Creatures movie, and I ended up not liking it. I'm not really sure if I'm going to see the movie now either. I definitely won't be reading the rest of the series. Though I didn't like it, I can see a lot of stuff true romantics would like in this. I think it had potential to be better, but just a no from me. I only recommend this to super Twilight fans.
I can't wait for this! I wish Mortal Instruments would jump start production like Beautiful Creatures :)
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to both adaption :)
OMG I am a huge Mortal Instruments fan I absolutely cannot wait until the movie! Yes Beautiful Creatures did start production quickly!
Delete