From the Bookshelf of Challenge Corner…

The Beautiful (The Beautiful, #1)

Renée Ahdieh

Start date: October 1, 2019

Finish date: October 31, 2019

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Oct 10, 2019 Emma rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fantasy, vampires

No. Just no. This was really badly written. The characters weren’t quite sure who they were or what they wanted. The dialogue was Bad. I wonder if this typical of this author’s writing? I’m not sure I’d be willing to read anything else to find out. Why 2 stars and not one? Well I was able to finish it and secondly it was lovely (briefly) having such high hopes for this based on the blurb.

28 likes · Like · see review

Sep 24, 2020 Aly rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook, paranormal, romance, ya, historical, fantasy, urban-fantasy, 2020

2.5 stars rounded up

Jumping right into this, I thought it was so slow and nothing happened for half the book. The vampires were barely there and the romance took forever to get anywhere. If not for the last third really picking up and giving us action, I would have given this 1 star.

The vampire part was not as prominent as I hoped and the murder mystery could have had more clues and deaths so that it felt exciting. I've heard the vampires and other creatures are featured more in the next book, ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Oct 04, 2019 Cindee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: october-2019-tbr

I really loved this book best Historical/Mystery/Paranormal book that I have read in a long time. I really liked the character especially Celine and Bastien I really liked how their relationship developed and I just loved how strong of a character Celine was she was one of the best written female characters that I have read about in awhile. I really loved how Celine overcame many things in her way either of her own making or from others. she seems to hate herself for what happened that forced he ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Dec 27, 2019 Lee added it · review of another edition

Shelves: dnf

DNF at 34%

I was eager for a good vampire novel, but let me tell you, this just wasn't it for me. I kept waiting for things to pick up, but it never did. We get poor world-building and a lack of vampires. Where were they? Was I just not patient enough for it? Really, I don't care. I was so bored with this book I couldn't focus at all.

There was insta-love and a weird POV that is randomly inserted and seems to make no sense. I'm honestly upset that I waited so long for this book on Libby to be thi ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 10, 2019 Ashleigh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bipoc-author, buddy-read, series-books, fantasy-sci-fi, 2019-favourites

The Beautiful follows Celine, a young Parisian woman fleeing France for a new life in New Orleans. She's eager to escape her past and goes to New Orleans to find a new husband, something which the nearby convent can help her with. But one day, while selling her hand-stitched items, she meets an intriguing woman who draws her into a fantastical magic world of the Les Cour des Lions (or the Court of Lions), and after meeting the remarkably handsome yet pompous leader, Sebastian Saint Germain, ...more

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Apr 17, 2021 Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: would-rather-watch-paint-dry, 2-stars, read-on-my-kindle, paranormal, fantasy, e-book, look-at-the-pretty-cover, romance, was-expecting-more, borrowed-from-overdrive

2 stars. Wasn’t awful but damn was it extremely boring. I honestly can’t recall any of the characters names and I just finished this freakin’ book. It’s long, dry and a bit aimless for a good majority of it. However, I do think the last 2-3 chapters really picked up and I did really like how this ended and am interested in book two just because of that. I wasn’t expecting it to end like that so that was a nice surprise. Also, the writing is gorgeous. I love Ahdieh’s writing style, her books afte ...more

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Nov 24, 2019 kia rated it it was ok

Same old, same old. Same old plot, same old trope, same old clichés and coincidences. I mean, I'm tired. ...more

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Jan 17, 2020 Penny rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really wanted to love this book. It gets one star for being a book, and one star for effort on the part of the author to write a historical fiction, vampire romance with feminist and lgbtq+ characters.

Honestly, this book wasn’t terrible in the sense that some trash books are terrible. In fact, if it had been written as a trashy vampire romance I think I would have liked it more because it wouldn’t have been pretending to be something with depth. It fell flat. The writing was all clichés and m I really wanted to love this book. It gets one star for being a book, and one star for effort on the part of the author to write a historical fiction, vampire romance with feminist and lgbtq+ characters.

Honestly, this book wasn’t terrible in the sense that some trash books are terrible. In fact, if it had been written as a trashy vampire romance I think I would have liked it more because it wouldn’t have been pretending to be something with depth. It fell flat. The writing was all clichés and metaphors and the characters lacked depth or any semblance of relatability. The love story was brief and seemed physical more than emotional. The “witty banter” was neither witty nor entertaining and tended to make me cringe a bit at the predictability of it all. I ended up being more interested in Michael Grimaldi, a lots of nonsense NINETEEN YEAR OLD detective who hates the main protagonists love interest, and seems to teeter between self-righteousness and inexplicable malice the entire story. Apparently he also loves the protagonist but he also treats her like crap and also doesn’t know her at all so that’s dumb.

This book was supposed to be about sexy vampires banging and eating mortals or whatever. At least that’s what I thought. It wasn’t. The vampires don’t really do anything spooky or vampiric and it’s basically all about the protagonists own inner turmoil the whole time which is also boring and hard to relate to.

Spoilers ahead:
The main girl is Celine and she flees Paris in 1872 to go to New Orleans because she killed a dude who tried to rape her. Sounds interesting right? Somehow this plot device is super boring and lacks any kind of on the body moment to break through the objective factual ness of its presentation. Basically it’s presented in a very cold and dull way, like a bit in a true crime story before the good gory stuff. But then it never gets good and gory. You don’t really feel anything about it except like a general good human “yeah, good for her for defending herself. I’m glad she was not actually raped and I am sorry that happened.” But there’s nothing emotional about the retelling you make you feel strong empathy towards her situation. Or fear, or morally conflicted, or sad, or outraged.

That’s basically how the entire book ended up playing out. Not much happens. Celine has a friend who came over to NO from England with her own dark past but we don’t know what that is. Her friend is nothing but goodness and propriety and sweetness apparently and Celine feels she’s a bit too edgy for her. Celine meets Odette (enter our lgbtq character that’s thrown in to only forward parts of the plot instead of act as an interesting character and add to the story in a nuanced and interesting way). Anyway a lot of boring nothing happens and in between it all bodies end up mutilated wherever Celine seems to be at the time. Michael is this random baby detective who seems more obsessed with caging our heroine than actually solving these serial murders, but whatever! Nothing matters at this point.

All the while we meet other characters like the Mother Superior who’s equal parts bitch and wise old sage apparently. The aging vampire uncle who insists on doing everything with “lethal calm” but doesn’t seem to actually do anything useful so why he’s even in it idk. Then of course you have Bastien the main hottie with a body who we all assume is a vampire but turns out he’s not, he’s just like Six of Crowing it with a bunch of vampire, friends? Aunts & uncles? Bodyguards? It’s hard to say.

I think people will read this and either love it and swoon over the very long and detailed description of fabric, hats and other fashions of the day, or they will be like me and sit there wondering why they spent over 400 pages on a vampire novel where basically no one drinks blood.

I will try this author again, maybe read the sequel even, because I still believe the story has potential, but I wish the author would spice it up more, write more minimalist and give me some real inner turmoil, some real conflict and serious tension. Everything is resolved too easily, and I want more sexy vampire action. Is that too much to ask?

I hope y’all like this more than I did! Here’s hoping the sequel is better! 🖤 ...more

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Jun 16, 2019 Tânia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-releases-wishlist, polishing-the-fangs, backlist-2020

First of all, I want to talk about the setting: New Orleans! 🖤 It's true that I have never been there (and probably never will visit it), but I feel The Beautiful did a great job at representing the city of the death, of voodoo, and mardi gras. There was such an eerie and ominous feeling about these dangerous streets.

I enjoyed the plot, but there were a few things I was not happy about: the insta-love (this was not a hate-to-love romance; this was insta-love disguised with "I don't like you" bec ...more

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