Monday, May 10, 2010

Book #61: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful CreaturesTitle: Beautiful Creatures
Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

If you read Twilight and loved the story but wished it were better written, try Beautiful Creatures. Like Twilight, it's a romance novel for teens, with star-crossed lovers who can never be together because one of them, well, isn't exactly human. In this case it's Lena, the new witch in town, who has come to live with her reclusive uncle, Macon Ravenwood, in a tiny backwater in South Carolina. Ethan's been dreaming about her all summer, and when he runs into her at school, they both realize that their futures are intertwined. They have a series of experiences throughout their sophomore year of high school that helps them realize that the inhabitants of the little town of Gatlin often aren't what they appear, and that ingenuity, hard work, and a lot of desire can help someone change their destiny, or at least delay it a little while.

I'm always impressed when fiction writers collaborate successfully. Garcia and Stohl do it here. I'm not sure I really understand why Lena and Ethan are able to escape their fate, or how the continuing saga will play out in the next book (Beautiful Darkness, due out in October), but I know that I want to keep reading, not just for the power of the story, but also for the haunting quality of the writing.

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