This month's book: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.So settle yourselves in, grab your beverage of choice and feel free to voice your opinion. Remember that I'm all about positivity, so we're going over what we loved and then what we wish was different.
Things I Loved:
1. The setting. Set in the south, the setting actually became a character all its own. I found it charming and well-done, if not a little slow-paced at times (see #1 below).
2. The MC, Ethan Waite. Told from a male POV, this YA novel gave a different side to a heavily populated female genre. He was likable. He didn't do stupid things. He wasn't a complete geekazoid. He wasn't mean, rude, brash, or in your face. He was average. Likable. Willing to take risks. I really liked him. (Sheesh, should I use "like" some more? Word choice, Elana, word choice.)
3. The secondary characters. The caretaker. The girlfriend. The best friend. The aunts. They were all well-rounded, well-done, and not cliche. Since I'm a pretty character-driven reader, I enjoyed this.
What I Wish Were Different:
1. The length. Holy loooooong, my friends. I devoured the first 250 - 300 pages, and then I was ready for the climax. The problem? It didn't come for another 250 pages. I mean, I like characters, but I like things to happen to them even more.
2. Which brings me to the climax. I was a tiny bit disappointed. Because it didn't really end. And I'd read 557 pages and it didn't really end!
So yeah. That annoys me a little bit, but then I have to remember that I'm more of a stand-alone reader/writer and I want my books to be complete stories all by themselves. But this wasn't that story. It's painfully obvious that there's another book (or four).
Overall Rating: 3.5 stars
Have you read Beautiful Creatures? What did you think? If you haven't, I would recommend it as a standard YA paranormal novel.