Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Maragaret Stohl

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Penguin (4 Feb 2010)

No. of Pages: 576

Grade Rating: A+

In Ethan Wate’s hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . . There is a girl. Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head. Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes. There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it’s been promised. And no one can stop it. In the end, there is a grave. Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.

Undoubtedly, one of the best books I've read all year. The hype surrounding this book was incredible and, after reading it, I can see why. It is pure, magical essence captured and enclosed in a book that comes alive as you turn each page. This book is devouring as you devour it.

From the first page, it was extremely easy to get into. It began by describing Gatlin and the narrator of the story, Ethan, until you could picture yourself in the same surroundings, smelling the same things, seeing everything as clearly as he does. After a while, you wondered as to what path the plot was going to take. It could either pan out one way or another, those ways being that this whole book was going to be a massive predictable disappointment, or it was going to be phenomenal, compelling love story. Once you read past the first few chapters, the story manged to take and transport you away until it was obvious as to which path this book took.

These ingenious authors have managed to create a group of remarkably lovable characters which is unusual as each one is different in their own right. Even the nasty, arrogant characters in the book, were ones you loved to hate. They built up the atmosphere of the book as well creating masterful suspense and tragedy that kept you riveting at the edge of your seat.

As well as being a magnificently crafted novel, Beautiful Creatures also holds many moral meanings. For example, it teaches you of the dilemmas that could come out of holding family secrets, although I don't think that many of the families in my area are cursed. It also teaches of the importance of choosing between good and evil and always staying true to yourself. I think future readers of this original, encapsulating novel will be just as amazed as I am at the true achievement of Beautiful Creatures.