Beautiful Creatures is a young adult novel written by Kami Gracia and Margaret Stohl.The story takes place is the fictional small southern town of Gatlin on South Carolina. One of the residents, Ethan Wate, HATES it. But something changes his mind. A girl named Lena, who comes to live with her uncle, Macon Ravenwood (the town's version of Boo Radley) at his manor. Because she is an outsider, all the townsfolk hate her. Except Ethan. He has been having dreams about her, dreams so real, he wakes up soaked in water or between sheets covered in mud. Lena is a Caster, a person with magic powers, and on her birthday, she will be Claimed, by Light or Dark. The problem? She doesn't get to choose. The choice is made for her. She doesn't get any say. The themes revolve mostly around Lena's Claiming. It touches upon good and evil, and the terrible things that come with not getting to choose, illustrated through Lena's cousin, Ridley. Ridley was once Lena's closest friend until she was claimed dark. After that, she became a complete tramp, and used her powers as a Siren to force people to do what she wants. But the theme goes deeper than that. Because Lena has the same power as her mother Sarafine, she discovers she can choose. But choosing has consequences as well. If she chooses to go dark, evil forces, namely her mother, promise she can have a life with Ethan, a mortal, which would be otherwise impossible, but all of the light casters in her family would die. If Lena chooses to go light, her Uncle Macon, whom Lena loves like a father and more than anything else but Ethan, will die, because he is an Incubus, a type of demon. Lena only delays her inevitable choice by sending away her Sixteenth Moon, or Claiming Moon. But Ethan is killed by Sarafine. Using a Dark book, the Book of Moons, Lena brings him back, unwittingly trading Ethan's life for Macon's I found that the ideas that the authors were trying to focus on were thought-provoking, but they were never really brought into view. they're there, but it seems like the authors didn't really know how to fully articulate what they wanted to say. This is a problem that permeates the entire series until the end, where it isn't really there at all. That being said, this was the first time in a long time that I've been so hooked on a series. I finished the entire thing in about a week. It's very enjoyable and pretty original. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Going more by quality, it only deserves 3, but it had a lot of entertainment value, and gave me that old familiar feeling of not wanting a story to end. And that warm, carbonated emptiness that takes the place of a story that sucked you in, leaving you happy with the ending, but sorry it was over.
Lena is a Caster, a person with magic powers, and on her birthday, she will be Claimed, by Light or Dark. The problem? She doesn't get to choose. The choice is made for her. She doesn't get any say.
The themes revolve mostly around Lena's Claiming. It touches upon good and evil, and the terrible things that come with not getting to choose, illustrated through Lena's cousin, Ridley. Ridley was once Lena's closest friend until she was claimed dark. After that, she became a complete tramp, and used her powers as a Siren to force people to do what she wants. But the theme goes deeper than that. Because Lena has the same power as her mother Sarafine, she discovers she can choose. But choosing has consequences as well. If she chooses to go dark, evil forces, namely her mother, promise she can have a life with Ethan, a mortal, which would be otherwise impossible, but all of the light casters in her family would die. If Lena chooses to go light, her Uncle Macon, whom Lena loves like a father and more than anything else but Ethan, will die, because he is an Incubus, a type of demon.
Lena only delays her inevitable choice by sending away her Sixteenth Moon, or Claiming Moon. But Ethan is killed by Sarafine. Using a Dark book, the Book of Moons, Lena brings him back, unwittingly trading Ethan's life for Macon's
I found that the ideas that the authors were trying to focus on were thought-provoking, but they were never really brought into view. they're there, but it seems like the authors didn't really know how to fully articulate what they wanted to say. This is a problem that permeates the entire series until the end, where it isn't really there at all.
That being said, this was the first time in a long time that I've been so hooked on a series. I finished the entire thing in about a week. It's very enjoyable and pretty original. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Going more by quality, it only deserves 3, but it had a lot of entertainment value, and gave me that old familiar feeling of not wanting a story to end. And that warm, carbonated emptiness that takes the place of a story that sucked you in, leaving you happy with the ending, but sorry it was over.