Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

This summer I went to France and Gatlin, SC.  OK, so I literally went to France, but mentally spent my five weeks there in Gatlin, the small southern town setting of the Beautiful Creatures series.

Reading each one of these 500-page volumes was like being sucked into another world and I found it hard to tear myself away from Ethan and Lena each time my mother-in-law called me down for yet more food.

One of the best things about this series is its narrator: Ethan Wate.  That’s right: two women wrote a book with a male narrator.  Sometimes I get sick of being inside the mind of teenage girls - ugh - so reading a story from a male point-of-view was a change very likely to keep me awake.

Ethan is, above all things, a nice guy, which is pretty cool. He is also bored - and who hasn’t been there?  Spending the summer in a town that doesn’t even have a post office, I can relate.  Anyway, Ethan’s family has lived in the same town for generations, so there isn’t much he doesn’t know or doesn’t expect - that is until Lena Duchannes comes along.

Dark and mysterious, Lena is the complete opposite of the fake blonds populating Gatlin; that isn’t why Ethan is first drawn to her, however.  Lena and her scent of lemons and rosemary, he soon realizes, is the same girl he has been dreaming about - literally - over and over again. 

As is often the case, even with true love, things don’t get off to a smooth start.  Lena seems less than enthusiastic about Ethan and the situation doesn’t get much better when she blows out a window in their English classroom - very cool.

Lena and Ethan seem to be fated for one another, however, by ties way older than themselves, so they manage to get over their issues.  Well, most of their issues, and Ethan might actually find himself wishing he were bored again.  Lena, it seems, is a Caster, a sort of powerful witch-like girl from a long line of people with supernatural powers.  That would be cool if Lena’s abilities were limited to awesomeness like blowing out windows to scare snotty girls, but it also involves things like being “claimed” - finding out if she will spend her life as a light (good) or dark (not so good) Caster.

In addition to likeable characters and an interesting plot, the setting of Beautiful Creatures is extremely engaging.  I’ve always been interested in the South, especially the spooky and superstitious aspects.  Beautiful Creatures definitely provided me with my fill of spookiness and superstition.

Happily, having finished the sequel, Beautiful Darkness and now half way through Beautiful Chaos, I just discovered there is another one coming out soon.  That is definitely a good thing because, to be honest, I’ve already read the end of the Beautiful Chaos and I want answers.

LAME FACTOR:  A big ‘ole 0 of 5 for lameness, y’all.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  For technical reasons that you will discover, Ethan and Lena are very well-behaved, so there is nothing to worry about - unless, of course, your parents have a thing about the paranormal.

BRAIN POWER:  Beautiful Creatures is well-written and easy enough for a fairly good reader.  No excuses.  

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

I’m not sure how I felt about A Discovery of Witches. One day, I really liked it and wanted to read ahead to see what would happen. The next day, I thought the story was too bogged down in unnecessary details. I definitely don’t need to know exactly what everyone eats or how the characters take their tea. In the end, things balanced out, more or less, and I would say I like the story more than not. Like most of the books I read these days, A Discovery of Witches involved paranormal creatures; in this case, witches, vampires, and some weird hybrid, daemons. The main character, Diana Bishop, is a witch who wishes she wasn’t. That’s not much of an option as, not only is she a witch, but a super powerful one descended from a long line of witches (you might recognize the name Bishop from the Salem witch trials). Blaming her parents’ deaths on witchcraft, Diana casts aside her magic skills – as best as she can – and concentrates on developing a career as a history professor. Her normal life rolls along pretty well until, while doing research at Oxford one day, she calls forth a very special book: an enchanted book, presumed lost, that appears from the stacks and opens easily for Diana. And that’s the point; it opens easily for Diana, but not for anyone else. Enter every paranormal creature in a 100-mile radius. Jealous witches, menacing vampires, and jittery daemons appear from every corner. Diana, not having educated herself in the ways of the paranormal, can’t figure out what’s up. A bit freaked out by the sudden attention, she is particularly surprised by the arrival of a handsome (aren’t they always?) vampire who literally sends chills down her spine. If you can’t figure out what happens next, you really aren’t reading enough. Clearly, the witch and the vampire fall in love, defying all of the rules of witch-vampire relations and setting off cataclysmic events that will undoubtedly require another book or two to resolve. Shortly thereafter, fearing for the life of his love, Matthew, our handsome vampire, whisks Diana off to his chateau in France (there aren’t any poor vampires either) where chaos ensues. The story is pretty predictable – but maybe that’s just because I’ve read a tremendous number of these types of books. That, however, wasn’t a problem as I thought the story was relatively engaging. The real issue was the overuse of detail. I love a good detail that helps me get a clear picture of the story, but sometimes it felt like way too much. I guess that’s what happens when the author is a history professor. Overall, however, A Discovery of Witches was a decent example of this genre and, if you’re a lover of series books (doesn’t anyone write just one book anymore?) then you’ll be happy to know that book number two is out and number three seems to be on its way. LAME FACTOR: I’ll have to give it a 1 out of 5 for too many details about wine cellars. OK; so not that specifically, just too many details in general. YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: These characters are very well-behaved, so unless your parents are opposed to the paranormal, they’ll be fine. BRAIN POWER: The book is well-written and definitely targeted towards older – and better – readers.

Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Nastasya - or Nasty as she is known to her friends - isn’t exactly the type of character I generally enjoy. Think back to my love for Grace of Shiver and you’ll see why. Whereas Grace was intelligent, independent, and sensible, Nasty is a bit of a jerk. Well, more than a bit, actually. Nasty is a hard drinking, party girl whose personality displays all the superficiality I usually hate in girls. But then I guess you’re bound to get bored after you’ve been alive for two or three or even four hundred years. Eventually, as Nasty has discovered, the good girl thing isn’t so interesting anymore. With her band of equally empty friends, Nasty has spent the last several hundred years drinking her way through the decades, concerning herself only with filling up the hours which, I have to admit, must start to seem pretty long after awhile. Happily, though, Nasty isn't nearly as empty-headed as she first seems. Having survived some horrendous tragedies over the centuries, including the loss of her family, Nasty has developed coping mechanisms that include drowning herself in alcohol and, generally, try not to think too deeply about anything. And then it all catches up with her. Witnessing an incredible act of mindless cruelty on the part of one of her friends, Nasty has an “I-can’t-take-this-anymore,” moment and splits without letting anyone know where she is headed: River’s Edge, a sanctuary for immortals looking for guidance. River’s Edge is a sort of home for lost immortals and is directed by the ever wise, River, herself an immortal who really seems to have her act together. At first, Nasty fluctuates back and forth between wanting to turn over a new leaf and wanting to return to a life where numbness covers up painful memories. I once again found her behavior a bit irritating, but I think that, in reality, her feelings would be fairly normal. Among the perks of living at River’s Edge - you know, aside from things like not waking up and vomiting every morning - is the incredible Reyn, a Scandinavian god of a man who instantly has Nasty’s attention. He’s anything but charming, but what he lacks in manners, he seems to make up for in extraordinary good looks. Who needs talking anyway? In the end, I found Immortal Beloved to be an extremely entertaining story with the added bonus of a good lesson about how to best live one’s life. It was such a good story, in fact, that I began the sequel, Darkness Falls, right away. Stay tuned for that one. LAME FACTOR: I would give it a 1 out of 5 for Nasty’s often annoying behavior, but I suspect I’m the one who is lame. That said, it realistically deserves a 0 of 5. Summer reading book, anyone? YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: Well, they might, just a teensy bit. There are many references to bad behavior, but nothing too graphic, and the character does learn her lesson. There is also some paranormal mumbo-jumbo and violence. As long as you don’t use it as a “how to” book, everything will be fine. BRAIN POWER: Immortal Beloved is very well-written, but nothing you can’t wrap your little head around.

The Night Circus - Even the Music is Magical!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Despite the lack of entries, rest assured that I have been reading – and reading and reading. I decided, however, that it might be good for my brain if I read some adult books and revisited the classics I like so much.

Then I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read all year (yes, I say that a lot). The Night Circus is an amazingly original story with a feel unlike almost anything I’ve ever read. The author creates a truly magical world inhabited by magical characters. The plot (that means the events of the stories, people) is interesting and intricate (I’m using my big girl words), the characters both loveable and detestable, but most of the all, the setting, an extraordinary circus spun from magic and decked out in black and white, is out of this world.

The Night Circus combines several stories running both simultaneously and at separate times. It’s not at all difficult to follow, however, and gives the reader the opportunity to find out what is going on with a variety of characters. This also gives you the opportunity to develop favorites among the characters. I’m sure, for example, that I should be most interested in the star-crossed lovers, Celia and Marco. They are truly magical people in the most literal sense (that’s my way of saying there is something really spooky about those two). Each one is a master illusionist capable of creating whole new worlds and destroying and rebuilding those that really exist. Pitted against one another by their “parents” at birth, Celia and Marco ruin the plan – the way kids often do – by falling in love.

Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah. That’s all very nice, but my favorite characters are Poppet, the female of a pair of red-headed twins born on the circus’ opening night, and Bailey, a young man living who finds relief from his boring life once he discovers the circus.

As much as I loved the characters and the story, however, I loved the hundreds of small details painstakingly added by the author to give The Night Circus its magical feel. In the end, this ensures that The Night Circus ends up being more of an experience than a book.


LAME FACTOR: Magic is not lame, my friends. Abracadabra! A zero for lameness.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: Only if they’re super weird.

BRAIN POWER: Get a dictionary; take your time. That said, it’s probably a good idea to try it if you’re already a pretty decent reader.