Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Source: Won in a giveaway

Availability: In stores now

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars

Description from GoodReads.com: There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

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.

I have had this book for ages and the size intimidated me so I put off reading it.  Thanks to J. Kaye’s Book Blog I picked it up so we could read it together and do a Twitter chat.   I have to say thank you so much J. Kaye!  This was an awesome book.  I was hooked about 30 pages in and it pained me every time I had to put it down to go to work or go to bed.  Lena initially comes off as the standoffish and quirky girl with a chip on her shoulder.  Slowly you come to realize she really is just a teen age girl desperate to experience all the things other normal teen age girls do.  What isn’t immediately obvious is why these simple pleasures in life have been so elusive for her.  Ethan is the only one at school able to breach her walls and get to know the real Lena.  While I like Ethan, his character was not as strong for me.  His “grandma”, Amma, instead was the one who I took an immediate liking to.  I am always a sucker for those people with the gruff exterior but heart of gold.

The story is like a roller coaster ride of ups and downs as the secrets began to unveil themselves.  Almost everything was paced perfectly to keep you at the edge of your seats.  May main reason for giving this book a 4 instead of 5 out of 5 was the ending.  That was the only part that felt rushed to me (yes, I know in the story they are pressed for time but I felt like the writing style was also getting rushed and sloppy).  The ending was a disappointment and seemed to take the easy way out.  That said this was still an excellent read and well worth the 600+ pages.

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