Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.
I broke one of my rules with this one. I saw the movie “Beautiful Creatures” first. I know. I know! I couldn’t help myself though. My fiance was out-of-town I had a nice bottle of wine and what girl can resist a young adult fantasy romance movie, I ask you? So, I rented the movie and I really enjoyed it. I’m not saying it’s Oscar-winning material or anything and I actually heard that they aren’t going to pursue adapting the other books because BC didn’t get the reception that they were hoping for. Which is a shame. It’s a guilty pleasure movie that I have since watched again and I have no shame.
That being said, once I saw the movie I HAD to read the book and coming off of the second GOT’s book I needed a decent “fluffer” book to keep me from going crazy on the train to work.
(Side note: A fluffer book is a term that I coined a few years ago when I started reading the Twilight series. I had just read a mammoth of a book and needing something easy and mildly entertaining to read.)
Beautiful Creatures is told from the point of view of Ethan Wate a high school senior who lives in Gatlin, South Carolina where nothing happens. It was pretty refreshing to read a YA book, in particular, that has a young male at the helm. Ethan has a very fleshed out voice and you can hear him speaking in his slow South Carolina drawl throughout the book. These are YA novels so they text is super easy to read and I flew through the first book with reckless abandon. I felt the fantasy aspect was balanced enough that you could actually see this sort of scenario playing out in a small southern town. I liked how the two authors steered away from using the “usual” word for someone like Miss Lena Duchannes and instead created the world of the Casters. Lena Duchannes is the youngest of the Duchannes clan and she is staring her destiny in the face. The Duchannes have been cursed ever since Lena’s ancestor did the unthinkable and resurrected her lover from the dead on the battlefields of the Civil War. Now, whenever a young caster girl turns sixteen powers are claimed for either The Light or The Dark. Her Uncle Macon is determined to protect her from the Darkness and reassures her that on the night of her claiming she will be of The Light. When she meets Ethan she is scared that she will be claimed for The Dark and therefore become a person that he doesn’t know. Through out their journey to break the Duchannes Curse they discover things about their pasts and ancestors that neither imagined.
I read a review on goodreads.com that Ethan seems to have no problem accepting the fact that he has fallen in love with a Caster and that he can now see the past when they each are touching a locket that binds them to this life and the past one; or that he and Lena can communicate telepathically. To that I have to say, it’s a book. It’s a young adult novel that asks you to suspend your beliefs. Did Bella have any problems when she found out Edward was a vampire or that Jacob could turn in to a wolf? I don’t think so. This is why we read books like these to imagine what it would be like if these things actually existed.
The books all fit together nicely and keep the ultimate story moving along. I have never been one for spoilers so I will end it here and just say that I enjoyed these books more than I thought I was going to. In revisiting them to write this blog I would actually not mind reading them again. They are a wild ride but one that is worth taking, especially if you’re looking for something to get you through a book coma or maybe you’re just looking to suspend your disbelief and take a peek in to the Caster world. Whatever your reason is for visiting Gatlin and Ethan, Lena, Amma, Link, Ridley, John, Liv, and Macon you will enjoy the adventure.
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