The Book
Beautiful Creatures (the Caster Chronicles, #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Release date - December 1st 2009
Hardcover, 563 pages
Published by - Little, Brown and Company
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Description (from Goodreads)
Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
My Review
(Beware spoilers in both reviews)
Beautiful Creatures was a delightfully dark story, written in the first person point of view of a sixteen year old boy. Ethan Wate resides in Gatlin, South Carolina, a small town living in the dark past of the Civil war and he's counting the days until he can leave. That is until the town that never changes receives a new resident.
Lena Duchannes is an outsider and lives with the towns shut-in her uncle Macon Ravenwood and therefore is shunned by the entire community.... Almost.
Ethan develops a relationship with her and discovers Lena and her family are casters(witches) and all have their path of good or evil chosen for them on midnight of their sixteenth birthdays. During the claiming.
While trying to assist Lena in becoming a light caster verses a dark caster Ethan discovers a world that has been hiding in plain sight all along. He learns things about his deceased mother that he is delighted to have unlocked and maybe he and his father could finally start to heal from losing her.
Although I thought the book could have had a few less pages I immensely enjoyed reading it. Magic, ghosts, good, evil, love and mystery are just some of the things that made this story great.
I give this a 4 out of 5 stars.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
The Movie
The first thing I have to say about the movie is that characters that I adored in the book were not even in the movie. How could there have been no Boo Bradley, Marian the librarian, and no whispers of Ethan's dead mother.
I adored the giant black dog that followed Lena everywhere. He was so protective of her and was a extra pair of eyes for Macon. I loved that he never wanted to hitch a ride in Ethan's car.
Marian created a link between Ethan and the magical world that felt wasn't achieved in the movie with Amma playing the part and don't get me started about the differences in Amma from the book to the movie. I didn't like her as much in the movie as I did in the book. She may have been way strict but you could feel the love that was there.
There were no sparks when Lena and Ethan touched and no real side story about Genevieve and her path to evil. Of course there were more things changed in the story but it was only ok for me. There were just to many parts that were different. I can't help but always compare the book to a movie and nine out of ten times the movie falls flat. So I will say what I always say when in this situation, read the book people, its much better.
I give this a 2 ½ out of 5 stars.
The Movie
The first thing I have to say about the movie is that characters that I adored in the book were not even in the movie. How could there have been no Boo Bradley, Marian the librarian, and no whispers of Ethan's dead mother.
I adored the giant black dog that followed Lena everywhere. He was so protective of her and was a extra pair of eyes for Macon. I loved that he never wanted to hitch a ride in Ethan's car.
Marian created a link between Ethan and the magical world that felt wasn't achieved in the movie with Amma playing the part and don't get me started about the differences in Amma from the book to the movie. I didn't like her as much in the movie as I did in the book. She may have been way strict but you could feel the love that was there.
There were no sparks when Lena and Ethan touched and no real side story about Genevieve and her path to evil. Of course there were more things changed in the story but it was only ok for me. There were just to many parts that were different. I can't help but always compare the book to a movie and nine out of ten times the movie falls flat. So I will say what I always say when in this situation, read the book people, its much better.
I give this a 2 ½ out of 5 stars.
✯ ✯ ½
Would I watch it again? No
Would I watch it again? No
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