Book Review: Beautiful Creatures

Goodreads summary:

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.

My review:

So I've been wanting to read Beautiful Creatures for quite some time, and I decided that since the movie is coming out in a couple months, I'd better hurry up and read it.  I was pretty disappointed, though.  Beautiful Creatures was quite boring to me.

It's not a terrible book.  I can see why some people love it.  But to me, it was very...meh.  For example, the authors wrote from the guy's point of view.  I hoped this would make the book more interesting, but I found that Ethan's voice totally lacks authenticity.  He is, in my opinion, a wimp.  He doesn't seem brave at all, and I never really understood why he is so in love with Lena.  Plus, he has this weird habit of describing what everyone's wearing all the time.  It seemed very unrealistic to me.

As for Lena, she's okay.  She's a flat character and I never felt like I knew much about her.  Some of the other characters, like Ridley, were unique and interesting.  But on the other hand, characters like Amma struck me as sterotypical and boring.

Oh, and this book is full of sterotypes.  Part of what drew me to this book was the idea that it was a southern gothic love story, but the southern aspect actually ruined it for me.  It was all just so stereotypical.  All the people in the town of Gatlin were judgmental, had extremely southern accents, were old-fashioned, etc.  It was so predictable and it drove me nuts.

Also, was there even a plot in this book?  It felt like the whole story was some vague thing about old secrets being uncovered and Lena worrying about whether her powers will become "light" or "dark" on her sixteenth birthday.  It just seemed so repetitive.  Ethan is arguing with Amma...again.  He and Lena are having a long conversation about whether she will become good or evil...again.  You get the idea.  There was no need for this book to be nearly 600 pages; you could easily cut in half and still have the main storyline.

I've been pretty critical of Beautiful Creatures in this review, and I feel bad.  It really isn't so terrible.  In fact, one thing I do like is that you can't even tell that two different people wrote this - the writing blended and flowed perfectly.  Still, overall this book was just very boring and was a waste of time to me.  But I have to say that I still want to see the movie - the trailers for it look quite exciting.  Fingers crossed it will be better than the book!

My rating:  4 out of 10 (2 stars)

~ The Bookworm