Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
I’m going to give this 3 stars but that’s really only because I really liked it the first couple times I read it and I remember being super disappointed by the movie. Now I almost want to see the movie again because…is it really worse than this? I should probably give it fewer stars, but because I remember it so fondly, I’m giving it a boost. Either the book hasn’t aged well or I’m not as into reading YA Romance as I once was.
Beautiful Creatures takes place in Gatlin, South Carolina, and focuses on Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes.
Ethan lives in a boring town where nothing ever changes and he hates all the ‘slutty blonde cheerleaders’ who are so shallow and stupid he can’t believe he ever dated them. He has these dreams every night of some girl, but he can’t see her face. He’s unique and special because he makes fun of his friend for being in a band, doesn’t like the blonde cheerleaders he used to date, and isn’t super racist (you know, makes fun of the reenactments and won’t hang up a confederate flag).
The girl from his dreams appears in town and suddenly everything changes. She’s unique and different (aside from the magic) because she wears chucks and has black hair and writes poetry and likes to read and isn’t a slutty cheerleader. She also reads on her own *gasp* and writes poetry. They become inseparable and he finds out she’s a caster (calling someone a witch is such a neg) and she has less than 200 days until she will be ‘claimed’ either light or dark. Other Caster families get the choice. At 16 you choose to be dark or light—good or bad. And there aren’t shades of gray (or wait, are there? Looking at you Macon. But that’s an issue I’ll get into later). I’m realizing how much I don’t like life-changing decisions that must be made at 16. At least in this one, she doesn’t have a choice and Ethan even comments how insane the choice would be. We will dive into this later. Lena’s family has been cursed and they no longer have the choice. When she turns 16, she will become either good or evil (or will she? Hang on, we’ll get there).
Here are a few things that made me giggle:
The cheer reference in the beginning when Ethan is explaining a pyramid that wouldn’t happen. ‘Two-tiered pyramid’ that’s either that movie cliché thing from like the 80s where it’s just a bunch of girls kneeling on peoples backs. Cheerleaders don’t do that. If they are talking about two-tiered stunt pyramids, those are illegal for high school and I doubt this school as depicted would do these at a football game. The second, he describes a flyer that was thrown ‘5 or 6 feet in the air to do a flip or something’. For those non-cheerleaders, he’s talking about a basket toss. Those are fine. They can twist or kick their legs, but they cannot flip in high school. Again, it’s an illegal stunt. So nope.
This is ok though 😊 ->
As someone who cheered around the first book's release, these things are pretty easy to look up and it drives me crazy when movies and books get the simple details wrong. You can’t watch an 80s movie and base current cheerleading off that. But this is a rant that is really out of place for a few random lines in this book. I’m moving on.
Next, Lena shatters the window with her mind and it cuts her hand. She doesn’t break the window with her hand. She’s standing in the middle of the room and a window shatters and glass cuts her. No one knows she did this with magic. And the teacher doesn’t immediately worry that the school will get sued. In fact, they later use this event as grounds to expel her from the school.
Then there are just some funny writing inconsistencies that make it feel like there were two authors who didn’t always read what the other wrote. Like in the chapter Waist Deep: ‘Link got up and tossed his tray and I got up and tossed mine.’ They just stood up and threw them, I guess.
I find it interesting that some sentences say things like “she looked at me and when she looked at me” but then some sentences say things like ‘tossed his tray’ where? Trash? Across the room? A couple pages later Amma ‘tossed them in the wastebasket’. Makes me think Link and Ethan just throw things around the room like a couple savages and I kind of love that.
Somethings I really didn’t like:
This book is way more slut-shamey than I remember. It relies heavily on the ‘she doesn’t wear makeup or realize she’s beautiful’ trope. It has some real mental illness issues…I mean…they want to expel her because she’s bipolar which means she’s ‘prone’ to being dangerous. I mean…dang.
The lack of diversity is kind of interesting considering the novel takes place in the south… Amma is a black housekeeper that has raised several generations of Ethan’s family. She cooks and cleans for them and lives in a house in the middle of a swamp. She reads cards and makes food for her dead relatives. As far as POC characters go, Amma and the librarian (who is a mix of ‘every nationality that exists in the county’) are it. In South Carolina. Interesting choice.
But anyway, onto the specifics!
***Spoilers below***
As stated, Lena and Ethan meet in dreams before they ever meet in life. This is actually done really well and I liked all the dreams and flashbacks. He wakes up from the dreams with rain and mud and he’s wet, and his sheets are muddy. It’s very interesting.
He rides to school with his BFF Link, who he treats like actual garbage. Ethan makes fun of everything about Link. Link has a crappy car (even though Ethan doesn’t have one at all). Ethan is better at basketball (ok, but who cares? Ethan doesn’t even enjoy playing). Link is in a crappy band that is absolutely awful to listen to and he has to tell Link constantly how crappy they are (that’s nice, BFF).
There is a point towards the end where Ethan is lamenting how little Link knows about Ethan’s life since Lena got into town…but Lena has only been around for a few months, and he’s talking about things that span about a year. So, really, it has nothing to do with Lena. It’s just that Ethan is a terrible friend.
At school, everyone is all abuzz about ‘the new girl’ and they already hate her. She has black hair. Gross. No seriously. But, to be ‘fair’ they also don’t like her because she’s ‘not from there.’ I’m not from the south or a small town, maybe this is accurate or one or both. I don’t know. It seemed like a lot, but I never moved and I didn’t go to a small school, so I’ll give this a strong ‘it’s possible’. I guess. Kids can be real jerks, but this goes beyond that. Even the parents ban together to drive this girl out of the town and are amazingly cruel to her. I’d hope this wasn’t based in reality, but it’s really possible. Which is sad. And if you went through this, I’m sorry. That’s not fair and you didn’t deserve it.
Instantly, Ethan and Lena connect and then they spend all their time together and there is drama, because, you see, Lena is a super-powerful witch. But don’t call her that. She’s a caster. As in, she casts spells. But she doesn’t. Things just happen according to her moods. She doesn’t have a lot of control. Very few of the ‘casters’ actually cast anything in this book. Their magic is just kind of an extension of who they are. But, spells do exist. The house is guarded and staffed by magic. Time in the magic library’s tunnels is weird. And at the very end (and during a flashback) a spell is read out of a book.
For what it’s worth, the magic is really fun. Everyone has a different power and there are light and dark versions. There is an incubus, and a siren, and Lena’s mom can control fire, and Lena can make it rain. There are healers and people that can see through time. I wish it had been the focus. But for a book about magic, the magic was surprisingly unimportant.
So, back to Lena and Ethan, when they are together, they start to unravel history’s secrets. They think it's Lena’s history, but it’s more than that. Lena’s ancestor, Genevieve, and Ethan’s ancestor, Ethan, were in love. He was a deserter from the confederate army and after he left and brought shame to his family (so much so that he was literally erased from the family tree…for abandoning the losing side of history). He was killed and Genevieve tried to resurrect him with a powerful caster tome: The Book of Moons, but she casts the spell under the wrong moon “the half moon is for white magic, the full moon is for dark.” The spell fails (mostly, he’s brought back to life for less than two seconds, and she has to pay for the spell with her lightness. Genevieve is turned dark and her family line is cursed ‘forever’. For casting a spell under the wrong moon that didn’t work. I didn’t love this part.
Hear me out, wouldn’t it have been so much cooler if the price was the same, she still turns dark, but she gets Ethan back? And then, because she’s dark, she kills him herself? That would have made a lot of sense. But no. The spell just didn’t work for reasons that are never explained and her family line is cursed.
Normal casters choose whether they want to be light or dark on their 16th birthday. It’s a forever choice. At 16. Good or evil. At 16! I hate this. Think of the things you did at 16. Were you ready to make life and universe-altering decisions at 16? I know I wasn’t. And for that reason alone, the whole caster choice kinda lost its shine. Plus, there are a few aspects that don’t make as much sense. As I said, there are light and dark versions of powers, so when Ridley was unclaimed, she was basically just a will worker, but when she goes dark, she becomes a siren. But Macon is an incubus. What is the light version of that? What was he before he was claimed? That one misses the mark for me.
And for families that get a choice, it means they can never grow and change. You can never switch sides. That seems…wrong.
I’m going to yadda yadda over a bunch of stuff. Macon is apparently a shut-in that the town hasn’t seen for decades. He has a ‘seeing eye dog’ named Boo Radley and runs around town and Macon can see through his eyes and know what’s going on in town. Ethan and Lena can talk telepathically to each other. Halloween is a holiday for Casters and Link’s mom comes to visit Ethan and is creepy. Lena gets attacked in her home by a mysterious force called Sarafine. Amma and Macon meet at her dumpy little house in the middle of a swamp where she feeds her ancestors chicken bones and talks about how Lena and Ethan can’t be together. Ethan’s mom died before the book started and his dad hasn’t left the house (or really the study) since. Lena doesn’t know who her parents are and Macon is her uncle. Lena has a cousin named Ridley and they used to be BFFs until Ridley was claimed dark and now kills dudes since she’s a siren. She’s got a pink streak in her hair, dresses like a goth schoolgirl, and her magic works by her sucking a cherry lollipop. She’s my favorite and I wish she’d been more important.
I eluded to this earlier, but the town bands together to expel Lena. Their evidence is the broken window and the girls being scared of her. And Link’s mom has a signed a petition from just about every parent in the school. They almost succeed until Macon bursts in and talks them all out of it by threatening to commercialize the town. Apparently, he owns a lot of land and he cows them into letting Lena stay. So, they don’t expel her, but she never really goes back to school because they hurt her feelings.
Link (Ethan’s BFF) and Ridley (Lena’s cousin) get together and Ethan decides not to tell him she’s evil. Because he’s such a good best friend. They plan a surprise party for Lena and Ethan doesn’t want them to because she doesn’t like Ridley anymore, no one at school likes her, and she might turn evil. But they plan it anyway. And Lena sneaks out of the party her family is throwing to go to the field next door (where they found the locket) and listen to Link’s band. Ridley has used her magic to convince the whole school to come and also make Link’s band sound good (which Ethan instantly realizes is magic because ‘they suck’ and later when he gets in Link’s car, the band’s tape is playing, and Ethan confirms that they are awful. Again. Every time the band comes up. He’s kinda a dick about it, really). The snotty girls from school bring Lena a present and she makes fun of them and then throws it away. Even though she wanted the party, she wanted them to like her and be nice to her, and they came and bought her a gift. I know they were under a spell, but there are manners involved with gift-giving and I found her reaction both tacky and bitchy.
Also, while they are dancing to Link’s band, Ethan comments how ‘skanky’ the girls are because they ‘ditched their sweatshirts’ and were ONLY wearing ‘tank tops and baby tees’ and dancing to the music. I mean…gah. How dare they only wear a tank top or t-shirt! They should wear layers of long sleeves at all times in the south if they don’t want to be called a skank by Ethan Wate.
But I digress.
Ridley uses her power to lure Ethan’s dad out and get him to climb a building and Ethan has to leave the party to try and save him. He tells Lena to go back to her house and have her cousin, Larkin, take her home.
Now that they are separated, Ethan realizes Lena is in danger. Link asks Ridley nicely not to kill Ethan’s dad, so she just…doesn’t. And runs away. Cool, I guess. Link and Ethan rush to Lena and Link’s mom is there.
Larkin has been living in the magical house safeguarded by Macon so no dark casters can enter. Except, it turns out Larkin is secretly evil…but it makes no sense. Somehow Macon, a super-powerful dude just…didn’t notice because Larkin glamoured with his eyes so they looked green (FYI, Green eyes=good caster, gold eyes=bad)?
So Larkin and Lena are with Link’s mom when Link and Ethan get there. But wait! Link’s mom rips off her skin and it turns out Sarafine (Lina’s mom) has been living as Link’s mom for a long time. And she tried to turn the town against her daughter to prove how much she loved her and how evil humans are. Makes sense.
She tells Lina that since she is the second natural in the family line (Sarafine being the first) she actually does have a choice if she goes light or dark and the curse ends with her. There is a catch: Whichever side she chooses, all the others die. So if Lina chooses light, her mom and Ridley will die. But not just them. Turns out Macon is dark too. And that’s why he didn’t tell her. He didn’t want to make her feel bad for killing them.
But if she goes dark, everyone she’s grown up with (except Ridley and Macon) will die. Honestly, it seems like a no brainer.
Macon and Boo are injured/killed, but thankfully there are healers in Lena's family. Sarafine stabs Ethan, killing him, and convincing Lina to use the Book of Moons (the book that cursed her WHOLE FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS) to save him, ensuring she will go dark and then kill him anyway. She’s about to when Amma barges into the field, tells her not to do it, and then says ‘just kidding, do it. I knew you would the whole time. I’m the one that stole the book from Ethan’s room and put it here!” (forgot to mention they dug the book out of Genevieve’s grave before Ethan had been hiding it in his room. Oh, while Genevieve’s ghost watched them and sat on her own gravestone). The whole exchange with Amma just made no sense to me. But okay. She even says they both need to do the chant because they are “the two people that would miss him most” as if his father would just be like, ‘meh, I lost my wife like a year ago, and it tore me up so badly I can’t even leave the house. But what do I care if my son dies.’ And a girl that had known him less than a year cares more about him than his own father. Dick thing to say, really.
Then the narrator switches to Lena. Which is super jarring. It had been Ethan the entire book. And Lena gets this one chapter. Just the one. Then it switches back to Ethan. It took me so far out of the book I was on a different planet.
Also, there is a healer but Ethan still bleeds to death. I don’t know why.
And in the end, she doesn’t even make a choice. She refuses to choose and wins. She hides the moon and that’s it. Her birthday ends and she doesn’t get claimed. There is no satisfaction there. And, if we’re being honest, it made no sense she’d even consider going dark. So why hide the moon?
I don’t think she should have been rewarded for not choosing. Maybe Ethan gets to live, but her family should all die. Something. Anything. The only thing that DOES happen is she learns she will have to choose again on her 17th birthday. But why? And why can’t she just hide the moon forever? I hate the ending.
I was going to read all the books and review them together but I’m so angry at this one that I’m not anymore. What I do remember from the series though is that Lena never chooses. She doesn’t hide the moon again, she just refuses to chose and is claimed both light and dark. She gets one green eye and one gold. Her family doesn’t die and she is really just herself but she got out of deciding. Which, in all honesty, as a real-life human, I can’t completely hate on because at 17 you shouldn’t have to map out your life. But…those are the rules of the book and book-wise, this is just cheating. I’d like to give this book fewer stars but that’s not fair since this doesn’t happen in this one. Still, 3 is generous.