REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL CHAOS BY STOHL AND GARCIA.

Title: Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles #3)
Authors: Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia
Edition: Paperback
Published: October 18, 2011
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Pages: 516
Source: Bought from Powerbooks
Category: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Trailer: not applicable

Synopsis:

Ethan Wate thought he was getting used to the strange, impossible events happening in Gatlin, his small Southern town. But now that Ethan and Lena have returned home, strange and impossible have taken on new meanings. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of Lena's Claiming. Even Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals is affected - and their abilities begin to dangerously misfire. As time passes, one question becomes clear: What — or who — will need to be sacrificed to save Gatlin?

For Ethan, the chaos is a frightening but welcome distraction. He's being haunted in his dreams again, but this time it isn't by Lena - and whatever is haunting him is following him out of his dreams and into his everyday life. Even worse, Ethan is gradually losing pieces of himself — forgetting names, phone numbers, even memories. He doesn't know why, and most days he's too afraid to ask.

Sometimes there isn't just one answer or one choice. Sometimes there's no going back. And this time there won't be a happy ending.

*CONTAINS SPOILERS.*

Beautiful Chaos is really chaotic.

After swooning over Beautiful Darkness, the itch in my hands wouldn't go away no matter how much I scratch them. My hands wanted to get Beautiful Chaos out from the shelf so I could start reading it, but I just have to wait for its reading schedule to arrive. So while waiting, I just kept washing my hands.

Beautiful Chaos took off after Lena's seventeenth moon. Gaitlin has been plagued with drought and pestilence that most people think of it as the sign of End Days. Little did they know, the Order of Things has been ripped after Lena Claimed herself. Even the Casters are having problems controlling their powers and in order to restore the Order, a Crubicle or The One Who is Two must sacrifice a life. The only problem is, no one knows who is it or where to find it and they are running out of time.

I was so happy that I loved Beautiful Darkness. Its ending seriously gave me enough answers I once was trying to find after reading Beautiful Creatures. The first half of it completely bored me but the second half killed it altogether. I was surprised how much I loved it and it gave me a new sense of hope for Beautiful Chaos, only to be disappointed once more.

As I always say, this series has its potential. But once again, coming from a guy's point of view, there were just way too many unnecessary things that have been explained. I believe the novel might have been a little shorter if not for those unimportant sub-plots. I have never met a guy who talks so much like Ethan. I love Ethan, don't get me wrong. But I feel like there's a thin line between being observant and talkative, or probably sensible.

I didn't get much from Beautiful Chaos' plot. Up until the very last page, I was wondering what was the gist of it. It says there that Ethan's soul has been torn into two after Lena's claiming but why wasn't it mentioned in Beautiful Darkness? Why did he become forgetful? Why does he feel drained and hurt when he's touching Lena? Who is John Breed, really? How many moons do we have to wait for just for something to actually happen? Those are some of the questions never answered in this novel and mind you, it is five hundred and sixteen pages! I also couldn't actually fathom how one can still attend a high school party when the world you live in is at the brink of rapture. The entirety of the novel seemed to showcase only the character's progress or current standing. It made me feel that it was mainly for the characters and the plotting came in second.

I am giving it two stars because I still appreciate the originality of the novel and the potential in it. I just wish that Ethan would be more mature and stop explaining how a cabinet looks like or what is the design of a curtain when those aren't connected to the story at all.

VERDICT:

"Maybe it needed to be broken. Sometimes things have to break before you can fix them."

REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS BY MARGARET STOHL AND KAMI GARCIA.

Title: Beautiful Darkness
Authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Series: Caster Chronicles #2
Edition: Paperback
Publication: October 12th 2010 by Little, Brown and Company
Source: Bought from FullyBooked
Pages: 503 pages
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Synopsis:

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 Ethan and Lena 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.

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*MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS*

I am so happy that I am posting my review this early for the reading challenge. Good thing as well that it is on my reading schedule for the week. And honestly, this sequel took me by surprise.

After Lena's sixteenth birthday, Ethan could no longer deny that something has changed. Something is terribly off not only with Gatlin or the Ravenwood Manor but Lena as a whole. Lena seems to be too far from his reach and he thinks he's losing her. She's been acting like a Dark Caster. Ethan has been seeing visions again and he has to find out why Lena is acting weird and who is the guys he's with.. Who is John Breed in Lena's life and is Ethan really ready to let her go.

Beautiful Darkness is the sequel to Beautiful Creatures I reviewed last month. I was kind of disappointed with the first book but this one swayed my feet off the ground. I almost hated it then eventually fully loved it. The first two hundred pages, it just keeps dragging on and on and nothing really happens. I was starting to be afraid for it might bore me to the extend of not finishing it altogether. But thankfully, the last three hundred pages redeemed itself from a DNF.

I almost hated it because of Lena. Her character here didn't not progress at all but in fact, she's at her worse here. She still couldn't decide whether to be Dark of Light and for goodness' sake, she let go of Ethan to be with someone she barely even know. If it wasn't for Ethan's eagerness to save her, she's done. I almost hated it because of Ethan. Well, just a little. There are some moments when he doesn't know when to stop which surprisingly, his stubbornness lead them to unveiling deep secrets and it saved lives. And then I pitied Ethan. A lot. The revelations and challenges he faced in the novel are all mind-blowing and painful that I even experienced a little shortness of breath. I loved how Liv and Link have a major part in finding the answers to Ethan's misery and again, at some point, it reminded me of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Beautiful Darkness is a sequel that is full of answers. All of the questions Beautiful Creatures left me were explained pretty well. Though new characters were added, the initial approach for the old characters developed in a way that made the second novel better than the first. My original rating for this book was just three or four stars but it erratically changed after I read it! The twists and surprises were so heart warming and heart breaking at the same time that I almost couldn't put the book down.

It is a riveting novel that requires a lot of patience. It rewarded me with so much happiness that I couldn't wait to read Beautiful Chaos and I am really looking forward to another fantastic, hair raising and heart breaking read!

"We don't get to chose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it."

REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL CREATURES BY MARGARET STOHL AND KAMI GARCIA.

Title: Beautiful Creatures
Authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Series: Caster Chronicles #1
Edition: Paperback
Publication: December 1st 2009 by Little, Brown and Company
Source: Bought from National BookStore
Pages: 563
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Synopsis:

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
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.

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*SOME SPOILERS, I GUESS*

I decided to join Lost at Midnight's Beautiful Creatures Series Challenge because it is one of the books I really look forward to reading and it will be adapted on to a movie next year. Reading it along with beautiful book bloggers is just the perfect way to start this series.

Ethan Wate is a sixteen-year-old high school student who lives in old and stuck-up Gaitlin Country. He wants to soon go some place else and see the world his books took him to because his live has been the same. Just before the school year starts, he's been plagued with dreams about a girl that he's trying to save. He thinks its only a dream until she sees her at school. The girl is the county's most terrifying shutin's niece and everyone thinks she doesn't belong there at all. Everyone hates Lena Duchannes, except Ethan. After all, they've been dreaming the same weird dream and they're determined to find out what it is all about.

Garcia and Stohl sure did a great job with this heart-stopping debut novel. Gaitlyn County, though just within South Carolina, seemed to be a very remote place in a different dimension. The people are too traditional and technology is low. People are afraid of things unusual for their taste. If there are places existing like that, I'm just not sure if I'd even visit one. It is place where you would literally feel you don't belong.

I like the plot. It involves magic yet the originality of the Casters are striking. Garcia and Stohl gave a refreshing touch to something I've always known since I was a child. I never could have imagined that such creativity would work with a genre as sensitive as magic. One wrong magical move and it could ruin a potential novel. But this one, I admit, is brilliant. The romance part did take time to develop which I truly loved and it is another book that has been narrated by the male protagonist. I loved how Gaitlyn County stayed intact as a community and how each and everyone treats one another a family. Though of course, there are some points I just couldn't agree on. Like how the phrase "around here" pops up every other page. It was tolerable at first but when you read a book as thick as this (five hundred pages), it becomes annoying. Then those unnecessary parts like the Reenactment of the War for instance. The narrator is a male and too many words from a guy just isn't convincing. Lastly, when I reached the last two hundred pages, I felt like dropping it. It just keeps on dragging and dragging as if the story would no longer finish. At some point, I got bored but finished it anyway.

Lena Duchannes isn't my favorite character. Her lack of enthusiam, her pessimism and childish attitude didn't really get my approval. I wish she would be better in Beautiful Darkness. Her boyfriend Ethan Wate, though only sixteen, showed sincerity, determination and compassion all through out the novel. He handled everything pretty well and I am impressed because he felt scared not only for the powers the Casters has been showing him but also Macon. Macon Ravenwood isn't someone I have expected him to be. True enough, first impressions never last. He took me by surprise. His character was a little mysterious at first but he gave so much to the extent of leaving a reader in pain. I would really love to see him more and I hope there would be a miracle in the sequel. I am still a little perplexed about his story and Sarafina, Larkin and Hunting made me wonder what happened to them. They just showed up from nowhere and eventually were gone again in an instant. I've really been confused about their motives. Am thankful to Amma and Marian Ashcrof. They've added glimmer to the novel! I loved Amma's sarcasm and Marian's perkiness and kindness! I am definitely stoked to read more of them!

The novel is five hundred sixty three pages long. The plot is fresh yet somehow complex. A lot of words had been used yet nothing really happened. I mean, I've been waiting for Lena to be claimed after all the things they've been through only to be disappointed. What occurred mostly were back-tracking, too much details, too slow, too many unnecessary sub-stories and just few actions. But I loved the plot and its rawness. It is very dark, magical and perfectly romantic.

My review may have been a mayhem, but am basing my rating on the plot itself and not the part where I got bored. A novel with a strong plot and heart-stopping twists deserves love and praises! Am really really looking forward to reading Beautiful Darkness!

"The right thing and the easy thing are never the same."