Book Review: Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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, of 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. - From the back of the book.

Why does everything in the YA paranormal romance genre get billed the next Twilight? Beautiful Creatures, even before publication had been getting lots of comparisons to Twilight. The authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl have already been given a movie deal, also brings people to the conclusion that it must be the new Twilight. Beautiful Creatures, though, in my opinion, is the better of the two series.

Beautiful Creatures is good. Really good. The best thing about it is the amazing world that has been created. It's magical and original, and has the sense of a real place. It has a gothic, Southern setting and has Civil War re enactments, and long family histories, going back generations. The authors capture what it's like to live in a small village perfectly, and readers can relate to that, even if they do not live in a small village themselves.

Ethan and Lena are typical teenagers. They are my favourite characters in the book, although occasionally they're annoying. Which is just typical teenage behaviour. Lena is different from other young adult heroines, though she does have a tendency to mope around in her room all day. Ethan is bored of his town, and wants something interesting to happen, and that's exactly what he gets. Teen readers will definitely be able to relate to Ethan and Lena, something I think is really important in a YA book.

The ending disappointed me though. I have to say, by the end, I was ready for an amazing finale, and it didn't deliver. I was all ready for the birthday of the century, but the ending was all about setting up the next book, rather than the actual birthday.

Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it to all paranormal romance fans, teen or adult, and I think Twilight fans will also love it. The second book, Beautiful Darkness is coming out in October, and I can't wait!

I give it 4 Feet!