Beautiful Darkness , by Kami Garcia

Hardcover, 503 pages

Published October 12th 2010 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (first published January 1st 2010)

ISBN

0316077054 (ISBN13: 9780316077057)

edition language

English

original title

Beautiful Darkness

url

http://beautifulcreaturesthebook.com

series

Caster Chronicles #2

characters

Ethan Wate, Lena Duchannes, Wesley "Link" Lincoln, Amma Treadeau, Macon Ravenwood ...more

setting

Gatlin, South Carolina

literary awards

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fantasy (2010), Voya Perfect Ten (2010) 

 

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.
Sometimes life-ending.
Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

 

My Review

Considering how much I enjoyed the first one, I was a little disappointed by the second one. Im not saying that it was a bad book because there was still enjoyable parts about it. However compared to the first one it just seemed to be far to slow moving for my liking. It seemed like there just wasn't that huge rift of adrenaline written and stitched into the words here so I didn't see myself connecting to it as much and was just looking forward to it ending. The characters were well presented as in the first book and I think that I came to love liv in this book which is why I was kind of upset on how ethan and liv did not get together. Don't get me wrong, I like Lena, but I just felt that perhaps liv may have been the right person for him. But anyway, yes this book seemed to be very slow to me, it just seemed to take forever to get to the point and actually had me very frustrated for a very long time, I just couldn't seem to get myself involved with the book enough to have the pleasure of really enjoying it and reading it.

Perhaps there was more to it, perhaps it was bigged up to much like the twilight series was? Or maybe the book was just missing that little something extra because thats how it felt, that something special, something with a pop bang and sparkle was missing from the pages that would have given it the ultimate wow factor. The ending was well done but you do kind of feel that you are just going in a circle and that lena is a somewhat bit of a drama queen who throws everything out of proportion. I just could not engage with this read. But let me put this right, It does not mean that I didn't enjoy the book, and it does not mean that I am criticizing it, I am merely stating that I do not think it was the book for me.

My rating