Ugh. I have had every intention of posting regularly this month, but life keeps on getting in the way… so without further ado, a review of a book I read over Christmas and am just now reviewing…
In Beautiful Creatures, we have Ethan, a high school student in Gatlin, South Carolina who is just trying to skate by as being normal until he can get the heck out of Dodge. But then, he keeps having these dreams about trying to save an unknown girl and when he wakes from them, he’s covered in dirt or water. The dreams are more real than he gives them credit for, it seems. Then, shockingly, there is a new girl at school– the girl from Ethan’s dreams. Lena and Ethan are drawn to one another, but face some pretty big supernatural challenges to their relationship.
So… this book’s premise sounded kind of cool. There’s some Southern Gothic-ness, some romance, some paranormal, some family secrets, yes, please, give me some of that. But this book ended up being… boring. I don’t know how I made it through 563 pages because for most of them there wasn’t much going on, unless you count endless time watching the characters conduct research that goes no where. The last few chapters were pretty exciting, but the book ends on a classic paranormal romance cliffhanger. Usually cliffhangers, even of books I’m not 100% sold on, make me want to read the next book. This time, I was just glad that the book was over. Needless to say, I won’t be finishing out the series.
I know that this has a following, but I don’t really get why. The romance wasn’t spectacular, unless you like confusing scenes about kissing leading to heart attacks (I didn’t even realize there was a heart attack until later in the book when they spelled it out for me). Ethan is the narrator, which I was looking forward to because I typically like teenage boy narrators, but this book seemed more like it was narrated by a teenage girl than a teenage boy. The book is too long and the plot paced too slowly. There are some historical flashbacks to the Civil War and that is a neat element, but they were sort of clumsily handled in terms of plot development. Overall, the book was boring and did not give me characters to love or an exciting plot to drive my interest.
If you are a big fan of paranormal romance, maybe this is for you, especially if you are eager for the upcoming movie. But I don’t even read a lot of paranormal romance and I know it can be done better, so perhaps just spare yourself the boredom.
Don't Take My Books Away 
All the individual elements sound interesting, but I’m so over cliffhangers that I think that alone would have put me off reading this. I’m impressed you were able to review it so long after reading it.
It left quite a negative impression on me, I think. Pacing was a huge problem for this book– the middle felt endless, and end wrapped up too quickly and without much satisfaction. It really could have been a cool book, too! I have a few others from Christmas left to review, so we’ll see how I do with those!
Agree. Loved the premise. Disliked the execution. You are not alone.
The hype just totally confuses me on this one. I can only hope the movie will do a better job with the premise.
Wish we lived closer so we could see the movie together and decide if it’s as boring as the book!
Haha, do you fall asleep during movies? That definitely could happen to me if this movie is a direct interpretation of the book. Also, I blame Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana for putting all this distance between our states. I mean, geez, they are hogging like a 1000 miles.
Oh I am so glad to hear you say that you found the book boring. There was so much hype over this book when it first came out, but after I read it I kept wondering what had I missed? The only thing I can think of is this book came out during the apex of the Twilight hype and Twilight fans were eagerly searching for the next big thing. Turns out Hunger Games was the next big thing, which I already knew the moment I read the first book years ago. However, I think the Twihards were trying the glass slipper on every foot in the kingdom. For a while, Beautiful Creatures smooshed its foot in the shoe and tried to make it fit. I didn’t buy it. Glad you didn’t either. However, I do want to see the movie. When I saw the trailer, I was like, “OH My Gosh! What is this it looks awesome? I can’t wait…oh, Beautiful Creatures? Oh. Well…” It’s got some epic actors in it. This might be the first time I find myself saying the movie was better than the book, or at least I hope so.
You’ll have to review the movie if you see it… since slow pacing was one of the biggest problems with the book, I bet the movie is a little better in that regards. You can’t have a movie with endless scenes of pointless research!
I actually really enjoyed the book, but would have been perfectly happy without it being a series. I had my complaints, like I think everyone did, but it was just a good, no-brainer read. The next book in the series though? Total snoozeville.
It wasn’t a terrible book, just one I probably could have lived without and one whose flaws stuck with me longer than the good points. Glad to know I’m not missing anything huge in the next book, though!