Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Amazon.com:

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.

We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.

At least, that's what I thought.

Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

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.

Beautiful Creatures encompasses a variety of things from a historic small southern town, to some great family stories to a romance to the supernatural. I would say my favorite things about the book were the setting and history, and Lena's family.

There is a passage in the book that describes the town preparing for their Civil War reenactment that I really enjoyed. I love learning the rich history of old towns and seeing a community come together over something. I also loved the supernatural history of that same town that we slowly learn and how it is intertwined with the moral history. Basically two worlds living on top of each other but separately.

Speaking of the supernatural part of the book, I loved Lena's family who we slowly get to meet as we read. I especially liked her Uncle Macon who remains rather mysterious throughout the book. He's going to be one of the characters I'm most excited to see in the movie version (yay!). I also really liked The Sisters who were somehow related to Ethan. Every scene with them was just hilarious I thought!

I think I would have liked Ethan and Lena to come together slower, be able to experience some more chemistry between them. I felt like they got together because they thought they were supposed to be together, because they had this strange connection before they even knew each other. I wanted a little more passion! I was also surprised how quickly Lena confided in Ethan about her family. That's not to say that there weren't more secrets revealed towards the end, but I would have liked for that mystery to be drawn on a little longer.

Overall a fun book that's the start to what sounds like an exciting supernatural series. I'm also very excited to see this turned into a movie, I think that will be a lot of fun as well!

Beautiful Creatures was released on December 1st!
Genre: Young Adult
3.5/5 Stars
ARC Provided by Publisher