Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl - Review

PREMISE

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.  (Courtesy of Goodreads.)

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This is another one of those "I bought the book because I just saw the movie and it was amazing" types of things. The movie was pretty brilliant, but it just left out some things (all movies do, right?) that made me glad I bought the book.

Ethan Wate is striving to get through his last two years of school so he can leave Gatlin, the tiny Southern town he lives in. (Apparently there are only two types of people in Gatlin: "The stupid and the stuck".)

Anyway, every night he has this dream, where he tries to save this girl and fails. Every night, and while he never remembers her face, she smells like lemons and rosemary.

Next thing you know, new girl's in town. The mysterious town shut-in's niece. Guess what she smells like. Uh-huh, lemons and rosemary. Ethan is naturally curious and forms a tentative friendship with the new Lena Duchannes. (He totally has the hots for her!) He knows something's up and eventually get's in on the witchy business. Together they face Southern small-minded prejudice, hostile relatives, ominous prophecies and various other run-of-the-mill teenager stuff. They even manage to sneak some kissing in there. I'm impressed.

See, when Lena turns sixteen she thinks she is going to turn into a witch bitch rather than just a witch. There's a curse on her family that means she's going to be "Claimed" for Light or Dark - and she reckons she's going Dark. However, while she and Ethan are working on trying to break the curse, musty old skeletons are coming out of closets everywhere and some meddling Dark family show up in town...

I really liked this book. It was especially good for a YA, what with all the restrictions placed upon them nowadays. It managed to be dark and a little edgy but kept it cool for the teens. I liked the balance in it because it wasn't all school and popularity games, and there weren't three other "best friends" waiting to get in on it so they could form some sort of hormone-filled, misfit-led, ragtag band of Fantastic Five wannabees. The characters were mature (for the most part) and just cool. 

I also thought Ethan was awesome. I liked that there wasn't anything special about him. He had no superpowers, yet he still managed to help and protect Lena. I liked that and thought it made the story more realistic.

This book took me awhile to read though. Okay, it's long but I normally just dive under my covers with a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and don't resurface until a book's finished. There was a bit of a lag in the middle though and I had difficulty getting back into it. However, the end kind of exploded in my face, in twist after twist of "I did not see that coming!", so I think it made up for it. :)

I think I'll give this book:

Four hats! It was enchanting!