Brad About Books: Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Read from February 18 to February 20, 2013

BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS
Published: October 12, 2010
Publisher: Little, Brown
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 503 pages
Source: Amazon.com
Series: Caster Chronicles, #2

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.

I had mixed feelings with Beautiful Darkness. I still loved the world - possibly more than the first book - but the plot slowed down, and one of my favorite characters really annoyed me.

I immediately had to start the second book in this series after watching the film adaption of Beautiful Creatures (which I reviewed the book yesterday!), and the beginning of Beautiful Darkness was epic! I was emerged back into the story and felt the sense of love I felt when I read the first book. But after 80 pages, I noticed that the story began to drag. Not a lot happened, and I would catch myself skimming paragraphs. Why? I'm not entirely sure. I guess the book just didn't have as much as action as I would have liked.

And Lena? I hate to say it, but I really didn't like her in Beautiful Darkness. I understand why she acted the way she did {for the majority} after the events in the first book, but then I realized that her character just didn't seem as whole and full as it did before. Lena got on my nerves when she would come up in scenes. Why couldn't she just be with Ethan? I didn't understand a lot of her thinking, which made me feel less connected to the book.

But it doesn't mean it's not a good sequel. It takes some time getting back into the whole world, but once a certain plot-point occurs, the story skyrockets and takes off. I couldn't set the book down for the second half of the book, and the authors did a phenomenal job at the events in the last 100 pages! Wow, my mind was blown at those parts.

Overall, I was disappointed with Beautiful Darkness, but I like how it's set up to transcend into book three! I can't wait to return to Gatlin!

MY RATING