Beautiful Creatures- Feb 2010 Book

[Corie]

So has anyone been reading our monthly book? I have been distracted this month, but am about 200 pages in so far. I hate to admit it is not something I cannot put down, at this point yet. I do think it is beautifully written though. The main character is so observant and intune with the setting where he lives and things going on around him and the background of the characters. Actually it doesn't seem as if a 16 year old teenage boy would be really telling this story at many times. I appreciate the great writing, but just seem surprised that teenage boys are that deep and thoughtful underneath their awkward exteriors at that age? Maybe just me.

Also, I see hints of a Twilight book flowing through this story. No vampires or that type of storyline. But it instead seems to be written from a boy's perspective (in Bella's position). -There are these new, strange people in town. -The girl is beautiful, tough, dangerous, not super well liked by the locals. - He stands up to crowd and is totally in love with her right away. -She has powers and he is trying to figure out more about what she is. - He may have powers that draw her to him, he has not discovered.

I will say there is this Civil War thing also running through the story so far, and I like that

[Jodie]

I am waiting for it from the library.

[Corie]

So I wanted to love this book. In fact, I kept reading, thinking something great was just around the corner all the time, the next chapter will be it. But it never was. There was a lot of pre-release hype to read it and the cover art was gorgeous, but I thought th book was lacking. I will give it marks for its Paranormal Lore. I think the authors created something that was all new with its own history and details, and I liked the Casters they created. And I really liked the Civil War history that was intermixed.

I struggled with it being written from the teenage boys' perspective. It never felt to me like 16 a year old boy would really go on and on about clothing, poetry, town history, the elderly people in the town and his family. I think 3rd person would have been more convincing.

I thought that a lot of subplots and characters were left incomplete or unfinished: Ethan's mother' ghost? Ethan's Dad? The girls of the clique?

Most of the book I felt went on and on, mostly just chapter after chapter of: "what are we going to do? I love you, I can't live without you?" It seemed like the days were changing, maybe the scene too, but the overall theme was the same,"what are we going to do?" By the end I was thinking they needed to "do" something great to pull this book out of the dulldrums.

I had a hint at the end that there would be an additional book to make a series out of this. Usually, I am always on the hook for a book in a series once I have read book one, but this I doubt I'll read. It ended, it's over, I'm on to something else.