Review: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Caster Chronicles #1

YA Gothic Fiction/Paranormal Romance, Published 2009

Challenges: RIP V, 2010 YA, Series IV

Read Oct 2010, 563 pages

Source: Purchased

Verdict: 4.5/5

First sentence: There are only two kinds of people in our town.

Book Blurb:

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.

My Thoughts:

This book had me at haunted plantation and overgrown gardens.  I had seen this book around the blogosphere, but didn’t really read what it was about until I saw it in my local bookstore.  I knew then that I had to have it.

Set in a deeply rooted southern town that still reenacts the War Between the States, there are still remnants of the beautiful plantation homes and it seems everyone in town is holding on to century-old secrets.  This story is told through a unique storyteller, Ethan.  It’s the beginning of his sophomore year.  The dream he has the night before his first day back changes everything.  He soon comes to realize that he and the new girl have a shared link – that they can talk to each other through some sort of telepathy. To top it all off, Lena is the niece of the town’s “Boo Radley.”  There are many references to To Kill a Mockingbird when it comes to Lena’s uncle, Macon.  Their family secret is that they are Casters, as in spell casters, and it is determined on your sixteenth birthday whether you will turn good or evil and Lena has moved in with her uncle until this has been decided.

My favorite story arc within this story was Ethan and Lena discovering Genevieve and Ethan’s names sake, Ethan Carter Wate and I hope we learn more about them in the sequel.  I also really enjoyed the character of Ethan’s grandmother, Amma.  She is the only one that tries to rein Ethan in, and yet she hold a few secrets as well.  Another favorite character was Marian the Librarian.

Overall, I really enjoyed this haunting gothic tale and look forward to see what happens with Lena and Ethan in the sequel, Beautiful Darkness.

Quotes:

There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. I never even saw it coming. (p. 3)

Book Trailer:

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RIP V Challenge Wrap Up

RIP V Challenge: Sept – Oct 2010

CURRENT STATUS: 7/4 – COMPLETED!

Hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings.

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

There are two simple goals for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril V Challenge:

1. Have fun reading. 2. Share that fun with others.

As I do each and every year, there are multiple levels of participation that allow you to be a part of R.I.P. V without adding the burden of another commitment to your already busy lives. There is even a one book only option for those who feel that this sort of reading is not their cup of tea but want to participate all the same.

R.I.P. V officially runs from September 1st through October 31st. But lets go ahead and break the rules. Lets start today!!!

Multiple perils await you. You can participate in just one, or participate in them all.

REVIEW SITE

COMPLETED:

1. Soulless (Parasol Protectorate #1) by Gail Carriger - 5/5

2. Deeply Desperately (Lucy Valentine #2) by Heather Webber – 5/5 – I might/might not review this one – Review for #1 – Truly, Madly
   

3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin – 5/5

4. The Masque of the Black Tulip (Pink Carnation #2) by Lauren Willig – 4/5

5. The Host by Stephenie Meyer – 4.5/5

6. Magyk (Septimus Heap #1) by Angie Sage – 5/5

7. Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl – 4.5/5 – Review to Come!
   

MY HUMONGOUS LIST of POSSIBILITIES – there’s still next year, right???:

A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott – Thriller & Suspense, All Things Alcott

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier – Daphne DuMaurier, Gilmore Girls, Thriller & Suspense

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie - Marple-Poirot-Holmes, Series IV, Thriller & Suspense

Blood Bound (Mercy #2) by Patricia Briggs (Mel’s – already have) – Series IV, Fangtastic Fiction

Iron Kissed (Mercy #3) by Patricia Briggs (Mel’s – already have) – Series IV, Fangtastic Fiction

The Sweetness of the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce Mysteries #1) by Alan Bradley- Series IV, Thriller & Suspense

Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side by L.M. Montgomery

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Roald Dahl Omnibus – Perfect Bedtime Stories for Sleepless Nights by Roald Dahl

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger

Evernight (Evernight #1) by Claudia Gray

Stargazer (Evernight #2) by Claudia Gray

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella by Stephenie Meyer (June 1, 2010)

A Hunger Like No Other (The Immortals After Dark #1) by Kresley Cole

No Rest for the Wicked (The Immortals After Dark #2) by Kresley Cole

Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night (The Immortals After Dark #3) by Kresley Cole

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

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Review: Stephenie Meyer’s The Host

The Host by Stephenie Meyer and narrated by Kate Reading

Sci-Fi, Published 2008

Read Oct 2010, Unabridged Audio, 21 hrs

Challenges: RIP V, Audio Book, YA

Shelf Life: 2 years 4 months, Purchased HB 5/1/08

Verdict: 4.5/5

Book Blurb:

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away.  Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy that takes over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact.  But Wanderer, the invading “soul” who occupies Melanie’s body, finds its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who has avoided invasion and lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met.  Soon Wanderer and Melanie – reluctant allies – set off to search for the man they both love.

Featuring one of the most unusual love triangles in literature, The Host is a riveting and unforgettable novel about the persistence of love and the essence of what it means to be human.

My Thoughts:

I really did not like the beginning of this story, (however, after finishing, I want to go back and reread it).  I made it a few hours into the audio and wondered whether or not I should continue, but boy, I am so glad I did! I think since the beginning starts immediately with an action sequence, with the alien transfer taking place, I was really confused.  I didn’t know where I was or who I was supposed to be.  I have read other reviewers having this same confusion, but I definitely don’t think the audio helps in this aspect.  The narrator makes Wanderer sound very mechanical or robotic.  Her voice is very monotone and it was hard at times to get the needed inflection.

Once some of the background information was given about the aliens and what they were doing, I started to understand what was going on better.  At first I did not like them, especially the Seeker.  Wanderer, however, is truly fascinating.  She has been many things and lived 8 lives before coming to Earth.  Once Melanie awoke inside Wanderer’s mind and started giving her a hard time, that’s when I really became interested in the story and didn’t want to get out of my car so I could listen more.

The love triangle aspect is truly unique.  Melanie and Wanderer (Wanda) both share Melanie’s human body and Jared loves Melanie and Ian loves Wanda.  It takes Jared a really long time to believe Melanie is still alive.  I really hated the violence Jared had toward Wanda.  Even if Mel was gone, taken by the Souls and never to return, how could he desecrate her body?  I think overall I preferred Jared over Ian (Team Jared, if you will), mostly based on Melanie’s memories of him, but I really wanted Wanda to just shake him and slap him across the face and tell him to stop being such a *BAD WORD* !!  I also really liked his inherent survival skills.  However, I really could have done without all the hitting.  Ian, to me, needed a little more grit.  I liked that he was so kind to Wanda, but he seemed to be too much of an opposite of his brother Kyle.  Side Note: REALLY liked the Sunny & Kyle storyline!!

I think the only reason this book is not technically considered to be YA is because of the violence, but I think any teen who has read the Twilight Saga has read The Host as well.  There is not a lot of gore and blood, per se, but a lot of domestic abuse toward Wanderer/Melanie when the humans still believed she had come to harm them or turn them in to the Souls.  Meyer continually made the point that humans, while able to have complex emotions, were naturally evil and violent toward one another and that the aliens or “Souls” were inherently good and that’s why they had taken over the earth.

Because he was a soul, by nature he was all things good: compassionate, patient, honest, virtuous, and full of love. -p. 3

But I think a major point was missed and I was really hoping Melanie would have stressed it to Wanda.  If the Souls were so good and revulsed away from guns and violence, why did they then not feel any remorse against taking over a human’s body?  And if that human’s mind did not cooperate (i.e. give way to the Soul) then they were discarded and considered useless.  The Souls did not account for the person inside, like Wanderer comes to realize through her human journey, so isn’t that essentially evil as well?  The person’s death may have been committed less violently than the way of the humans, yet it had the same end result.

I read on Melanie’s blog, I’m pretty sure she is unrelated to Mel in the book , that she would have really liked to have seen a map of the caves.  I so agree! Wouldn’t that be so awesome? I am discovering that I LOVE fantasy books with maps, but I’ll save that topic for another post.

I loved the ending and I really hope Meyer delivers with a trilogy.  They are tentatively titled The Soul and The Seeker.  I just hope they don’t disappoint me like the Twilight saga.  I LOVED Twilight, still really loved New Moon, really liked Eclipse, but was ultimately disappointed with Breaking Dawn (ummm, no review but I gave it a 3.5/5, which is pretty low on my generous scale).  I also really liked the graphic novel.

Quotes:

Life and love went on in the last human outpost on the planet Earth, but things did not stay exactly the same.  I was not the same. -p. 609

Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale. -p. 609

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Review: Soulless

Soulless by Gail Carriger

The Parasol Protectorate #1

Fantasy/Horror/Romance, Published 2009

Challenges: Series Challenge IV, Fangtastic Fiction Challenge, RIP V Challenge

Read: Sept 2010, 357 pp

Verdict: 5/5

Book Blurb:

First, she has no soul.  Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead.  Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there?  From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire – and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia is responsible.  Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society?  Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing?  Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

My Thoughts:

What a fantastic beginning to a new series (just what I needed…)!  Set in a very proper Victorian setting, with a generous use of 19th century syntax, along with vampires and werewolves living out in the open, Alexia is quite the lady, a spinster at twenty-something, she has quite given up on finding a husband and spends her time being bothered by her family, keeping up with her many social circles, and neutralizing the supernatural.  She is a rare breed, indeed, a preternatural, and is friends with both the vampires and werewolves, often acting as their liaison. I loved Alexia’s wit and sharp bite (pun intended), especially the back and forth between her and Lord Maccon.  And watch out for her parasol!

Carriger brings a lot of fun, eccentric characters, to say the least, to her alternative world and I hope we will get to know them better throughout the series.  There is a lot going on in this book – {mystery, alternate history, romance, fantasy, and a dash of steampunk} – and while it is technically listed as an urban fantasy/horror, it should really be found in the paranormal romance section, IMO.  There is no real horror, no really gruesome or violent details, unless you don’t like the mystery arc taking a back seat to the romance about half way in.

Warning: This book is Rated R for sexual content.

Quotes:

Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening.  Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event.  To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire. -p. 1

“Why is it Miss Tarabotti, every time I have to clean up a mess in the library, you just happen to be in the middle of it?”  the earl [Lord Maccon] demanded of her.  -p. 8

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RIP V Challenge is here!

I can’t believe it’s that time again already!  This will be my 3rd time to participate in the RIP challenge and I just love it!

Hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings.

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

There are two simple goals for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril V Challenge:

1. Have fun reading.
2. Share that fun with others.

As I do each and every year, there are multiple levels of participation that allow you to be a part of R.I.P. V without adding the burden of another commitment to your already busy lives. There is even a one book only option for those who feel that this sort of reading is not their cup of tea but want to participate all the same.

R.I.P. V officially runs from September 1st through October 31st. But lets go ahead and break the rules. Lets start today!!!

Multiple perils await you. You can participate in just one, or participate in them all.

COMPLETED:

1. Soulless (Parasol Protectorate #1) by Gail Carriger – Series IV, Fangstastic Fiction, Summer Reading Challenge
   

LIST of POSSIBILITIES:

A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott – Thriller & Suspense, All Things Alcott

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier – Daphne DuMaurier, Gilmore Girls, Thriller & Suspense

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie - Marple-Poirot-Holmes, Series IV, Thriller & Suspense

Blood Bound (Mercy #2) by Patricia Briggs (Mel’s – already have) – Series IV, Fangtastic Fiction

Iron Kissed (Mercy #3) by Patricia Briggs (Mel’s – already have) – Series IV, Fangtastic Fiction

The Sweetness of the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce Mysteries #1) by Alan Bradley- Series IV, Thriller & Suspense

Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side by L.M. Montgomery

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Roald Dahl Omnibus – Perfect Bedtime Stories for Sleepless Nights by Roald Dahl

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger

Evernight (Evernight #1) by Claudia Gray

Stargazer (Evernight #2) by Claudia Gray

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella by Stephenie Meyer (June 1, 2010)

A Hunger Like No Other (The Immortals After Dark #1) by Kresley Cole

No Rest for the Wicked (The Immortals After Dark #2) by Kresley Cole

Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night (The Immortals After Dark #3) by Kresley Cole

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Read Full Post »