Beautiful Creatures

[Audiobook]
By: Kami Garcia and Margarat Stohl
Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
Publisher:Hachette Audiobooks
Dates Listened: Sept. 1 - Jan. 11
Length: 17 hrs 33 min
Source: Overdrive App

Why did I read it?
In February 2013 a friend and I wanted to see a movie but didn't really know anything that was out.  We decided on what seemed liked the best: Beautiful Creatures.  I remember walking out of the theatre and saying "That was some weird shit."  Well, fast forward to September 2016 and I have a long drive ahead of me to visit my mom so I need an audiobook.  I was browsing around, looking for something good and available.  Let me just side bar to say how weird it is that a library only allows one person to listen to a book at the same time.  Why can't 100 listen?  Who knows, but Beautiful Creatures was pretty well all there was available.  

As you can see, this book took me more than 6 months to listen to.  I cannot tell you how many times I borrowed this from the library.  I wasn't really motivated to listen to it until the end because, by then, if I listened to it it would finally be over.  

Ethan Wate finds himself falling for the dark, mysterious, new girl in school everyone seems to hate: Lena.  Her family is weird but he doesn't seem to care.  Soon enough they're teenagers in love and he finds out that she is a castor.  Not a witch, they prefer "castor".  In Lena's family at the age of sixteen you are claimed to either the dark or the light side.  Turns out this girl is pretty powerful so everyone wants her.  The darkest castor in all the world is campaigning pretty hard to get her, thus, crazy shit ensues.  


Let's start with the writing of this book.  What I appreciate is that it is told from the boy's perspective; most YA fiction is not.  However, as per usual when it comes to supernatural fiction, it is told by the person on the outs (I'm looking at you Bella Swan).  Honestly Lena's story is not very compelling to me.  This girl takes angst to a whole new level.  She is completely unreasonable and besides her being beautiful the authors do not give a good reason for Ethan to be attracted to her except for the "undeniable bond" between them.  As I said, her family is made up of castors and I feel like the writers kept throwing stuff in because it would be cool and then bringing it no where.  There was a lot of stuff they could have easily cut out.  

They could have cut out some supernatural to add a little more about Ethan's "normal" family.  Normal in the fact that his mom died four months before the book begins, his dad has gone crazy because of it, and his nanny/housekeeper/second mother can speak to the dead and other weird stuff.  There was so much left unsaid about Ethan's family.  It drove me nuts.  That was the good stuff!  I want to hear more about his mom.  Will his dad always be crazy?  How on earth did this nanny who can speak to the dead end up in his house?  In summary, there was too much Lena and not enough Ethan...even though Ethan was the one telling the story.  

Now the narration: Kevin T. Collins was good.  He sounded like a girl when he was reading as a girl.  He sounded like a sassy southern voodoo housekeeper when he needed to.  He sounded like a staunch old man.  Good stuff.  What bugged me about Collins was that he narrated in an American accent, but when he spoke as Ethan, he had a southern accent.  The book takes place in the south and he did great with the varying accents/dialects, but why would being in Ethan's head sound different then the words that come out of Ethan's mouth?  This was the only reason I was ever confused about what character was talking.  It actually took me a while to realize that the regular southern guy was Ethan, the narrator.  I'll go ahead and blame that on the director.  

I will also blame the director for the weird singing.  Ethan and Lena often hear a creepy song that tells them about what is going to happen later.  Here is the problem: I couldn't understand what the girl was singing.  They tried too hard to make it sound haunting I couldn't understand her.  I went the whole novel not knowing what was going to happen because the song that explains it could not be understood.  They also added a lot of atmospheric sound affects.  These were nice because you really felt like you were there in the storm or in front of the burning trees with them.  However, sometimes they were so much you couldn't clearly hear the words being spoken and it took away from the scene instead of adding to it.  I would think twice before hiring the people who produced or directed this audiobook Hachette.  



Rating: 2/5
I did not like or enjoy this audiobook.  The story was bad.  The writing was subpar.  The production was annoying.  It is possible that some of the holes I mentioned above come out in the later books, but I doubt it.  I have no great desire to find the answers so I will probably never read/listen to the remainder of the series.  Although, I am kind of curious to watch the movie again now that I've read the book...I have a feeling it would still get the same rating as this book though.  

Recommendation: 
If you are a teenager who likes darker books about the supernatural this might be your cup of tea.  I suggest actually reading it and not listening to it. If you don't care a whole lot about writing style and liked Twilight, this just might be your next "great" read.  If you are none of the things I said above, don't waste your time.