I have to thank the lovely Emma from Book Angel Booktopia who sent me a copy of this to read. And she told me I could keep it. I beg you to go visit her site as she is SUPER LOVELY and I love her!
In the first book Kami's write solo, Kennedy Waters doesn't believe in ghosts. Until one tries to kill her. Then her world truly begins to unravel. When the identical twins of Jared and Lukas Lockhart save her and tell her that her mother might be part of the mysterious Legion, a secret society responsible to protecting the world from evil ghosts and demons. The same society that the previous five members died on the same night - including her mother.
But now the new members of Legion want Kennedy's help to save the world from the return of a dangerous evil. But is Kennedy really a member of the Legion? And if she's not, what will happen to them all?
As most of us know, Kami wrote the Beautiful Creatures series with Margaret Stolh and now both authors are writing their own series. Margaret is writting her series, Icons (review for that is here), and Kami is now writing her Legion series.
First of all, I have to state this: if you think this is going to be like Beautiful Creatures, stop. This isn't. You have to go to this with an open mind as, while Beautiful Creatures is about witches/Casters, this is about ghosts.
Now, with this book, I am in two minds over this. There are both pros and cons.
I love the pacing of the book. I loved how the book sped through and I was speeding through the pages. I love that there was always something to read and, at times, I was breathless at the pace. And this book was creepy. The ghosts were creepy! The well and the prison scenes are freaky and I just wanted to keep reading.
My main issue comes under description. There was very little description on characters and places. This is probably because of the speed of the book. Because of the speed, descriptions would slow down the pacing. But, when we had descriptions, it was VERY BRIEF or non-existence. When you met Lukas and Jared for the first time, you are met with the description that they are identical twins, dark hair, blue eyes, Jared has a scar and Lukas smiles. That's it. Unless I missed most of it.
I liked this book, but I didn't love it. While I am uncertain on if I will read the sequel, I do love the speed of the story and the creepy ghosts so maybe... Maybe I'll wait for book 2. Maybe... we shall wait and see...
Here it is! My last review of 2013! Technically, I wanted my last review of this year to be Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier. But then I was reminded that this was coming out and I read it so quickly I thought I might as well review this and save all the hopefully awesome reads that I should be attacking over Christmas in the New Year.
So, Dangerous Dream. This is a prequel novella for the new spinoff series based in the world of the Casters. That's right, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are back totogether. So they are not only writing their own series but this new series - the Dangerous Creatures series - the first book should be out sometime in May, if I got my info right.
So, set after Beautiful Redemption (if you haven't read the Beautiful Creatures series, SPOILERS AHOY!), the story is told from three points of view. Ethan has the first part (BEFORE), Link has the second (AFTER) and then Ridley has the third, final and longest part (AFTERMATH). And through these three parts, we see a summer. A summer where Link tells Ridley that he loves her. And we see Ridley reaction to this and see her do something, that us readers know that sooner or later, she is going to regret...
This is very much a "set-up" story. This new series is going to follow Link and Ridley in New York City and this sets up how/why they both go there. And, from the looks of it, Dangerous Creatures might be told from Ridley's point of view (this is from the sneaky peek of Dangerous Creatures - and we all know that she is one of those!) so that's going to be interesting to read about her - as a character says in Dangerous Dreams, "she's her own worst enemy, yet her own best friend".
I did like it, but I didn't love it because of this reason. While I think this is a good thing for the new series (read my next paragraph), I wanted more. More details, more information, just more...
I haven't read Beautiful Chaos or Beautiful Redemption (I will try and read them next year. I will try, no promises), but I sense this new series will have the same effect on the fans as when Cassandra Clare announced that she was writing books 4, 5 & 6 of the Mortal Instruments series. Some fans were VERY excited. Some fans were VERY unhappy. And some fans didn't honestly care and trusted the author with this decision. And I think this will be the same with Dangerous Creatures, which is why I feel that what Margaret and Kami did (writing this eNovella) was a smart move. If you are unsure if you want to read this new series or not, READ THIS FIRST then you can sit down afterwards and make up your own mind.
As I still need to read Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption, I don't know if I will go to this new series just yet, but I do find Link and Ridley's relationship interesting to read (I mean, come on. HOW are these two very different people in this intense/hot relationship?) and I like that Ridley is so complex and yet doesn't give two hoots about how the world sees her (and I love how Emmy Rossum played her in the movie), BUT we shall wait and see if this new series is going to be just as big as the Beautiful Creatures series...
You must be wondering if I'm alright or not. I mean, within a few weeks, I have read the movie companion, seen the movie and, now, read the manga for a book that I liked, but didn't love (I still much prefer Beautiful Darkness more than Beautiful Creatures and I still have every intention to read both Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption by the end of this year). But I won this via Twitter when Penguin Books did their #TwitterChat with both authors, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I asked the question if they were times they disagreed over any events that happened in the series and how they overcame them. I'm not sure if the question was answered, but I won a copy. So, thank you Twitter!
In this manga, it tells the basic story of Beautiful Creatures. In the town Gatlin, Ethan Wate is desperate to escape. But when Lena Duchannes enters his life, Ethan discovers that the sleepy town of Gatlin isn't as sleepy as he first thought. Soon, Ethan and Lena's love for each other is tested...
Out of this and the movie, the manga is the most loyal. And this surprised me. I honestly thought the manga was going to be a cheap and fast way for the publisher to plug in the hype going around the series due to the movie. Also, there's a feeling that, if a book/series is popular in YA at the moment, then there HAS to be a graphic novel/manga to go with it (milk the cash cow dry, publishers!) .And it didn't feel like that. It felt like the artist who adapted the novel into this - Cassandra Jean - is a fan of the books (I could be wrong) and took from the novel what was important and put them in the manga. I mean, there was so many things that I read in the manga that I honestly forgot was in the book (Link getting a tattoo of Ridley, for example). This helped refresh my memory of this book and, being honest with you, I liked this. I honestly enjoyed reading this. I think I might have enjoyed this more than the novel (please don't hurt me!)
The art. I have to talk about the art. It's a manga, I have to talk about the art. And I really liked the art. It just fitted with the world of Gatlin. I know some of you guys won't and that because of the the style. It's very sketchy. It's not neat or polished. It's as if Ethan drew this in a sketch book. So, because of this style, some characters' faces seem flat and you have moments where there's writing to show the mood or an action (ie AWKWARD, BAM, SLAM and GASP). But this, in my opinion, seem to fit and work.
I would really like the rest of the series to be done as manga, but I sense this will depend on how the movie does (and from what I've heard, the box office is doing ok, but not enough to warrant a sequel...), but if you're a fan of the series or of manga, you might want to give this a peek.
Where should I put this review? That is the main question am asking myself while I write this review. I know, that is a stupid thing to think, but I am actually thinking this...
So, while I push that question to one side while I write up my review/reaction to Beautiful Darkness, the second book in the Caster Chronicles by Kami Gracia and Margaret Stohl. I'm not sure if I can keep this spoiler-free so, if you are considering or are reading Beautiful Creatures and you don't want to be spoiled, STOP READING!!! (and if you haven't read Beautiful Creatures, click here if you want to read my review...)
Right, now that's out of the way, Beautiful Darkness. After the events of Beautiful Creatures, Ethan thinks he and Lena, the Caster he's in love with, are safe from the events of Lena's sixteen birthday. She wasn't Claimed, but Lena made a choice. A choice so terrible, it's haunts her daily. A choice so terrible, even Ethan doesn't knows about it. And now, Lena is becoming more distance from Ethan and he is terrified of losing her. Losing her to the Dark, and losing her from his life. Now, her seventeen birthday is coming, and Lena has to make a choice. Whatever she decides will have unspeakable consequences. Can Ethan save her in time? And Lena want to be saved?
Am going to be honest with you. While I liked Beautiful Creatures, I much prefer Beautiful Darkness. I think this is because I put so much pressure on myself to like Beautiful Creatures, seeing as I ADORE the movie trailer (see below!). So, when the book didn't met my expectations, I felt a bit let down. Whereas, with Beautiful Darkness, I don't have that pressure. I'm reading it because I want to read it. I want to know what happens next (and because I have the other two books in the series and I am going to read them whether I like this series or not!). Having no pressure to like this book was very liberating! And it actually helped me like the book!
Anyway, Beautiful Darkness. It's darker than Beautiful Creatures (always a good thing, in my humble opinion as this shows depth in the world) and there's not so much world building andexplaining was done to the reader/Ethan. All of that is explained in Beautiful Creatures, so you sink into the story, while the authors add layers to the world of the Casters. New layers, new things to discover, new characters (well, only two, but we get very little on one of them so, technically, one character). And while we're on characters, how I love reading about Amma, Link and Ridley. They, to me, are perfect for the book. Amma and Link seem to ground the book into reality, even though they are in the supernatural world, while Ridley seems to be the book's light relief (as is Link) and gives the book a spunky edge. And with the new character of Liv... what I seem to be saying is that while the book is supernatural, it's very much character-driven.
Also, both Kami and Margaret are clever as they answer some questions most of us asked in book one, while asking new questions that hint towards answers in the next few books, Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption.
Now, I do have one or two faults. One of which, I'm not sure if it's a bad thing or something VERY clever from the authors. So, first fault. In the last quatre of the book, there were times when times happened that felt a tiny bit convenient. People would pop up with the right thing or the right information at time when Ethan most needed it... and that felt false at times. Though both Margaret and Kami explained this, I wish that it was more hinted at during the book so it would, to me, feel more real than me going "Huh?"
The second fault is Lena. Again. I know I talked about her in my review of Beautiful Creatures, and I sense from the spoiler-free reviews of Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption that she is going to bother me a bit. But in this book... oh, how ANGRY I got with. I know she is the main female lead and I know that she's only sixteen, but OH MY GOODESS! The number of times I wanted to shake her and the number of times I was cursing her very bad words was ridiculous! I spread a fair amount of time while reading this book HATING Lena! That's right, HATING! With capital letters!
But (now this is where I get a little unstuck with this fault), I think both Margaret and Kami did this on purpose. Now, stick with me on this. For the first quarter of the book, I sympathised with her. I felt Lena's pain and grief over what happened to her in the last book. And then, that vanished with Lena went nuts. Mostly during the Galtin Country Fair chapters, but there was a build up. But it was mostly here with her behaviour and the way she treated people. Because of this, I HATED her. But then, by the end of the book, though I still disliked her for what she did, I kinda understood why Lena behaved the way she did. Maybe even sympathised with her again. So, to have a reader react so physically to a character and their behaviour is one of the main things for an author to do and when a reader does react like this, you know that the character is well written!
While I still don't like Lena Duchannes, I am really surprised on how much I liked this book. And the fact I liked it more than Beautiful Creatures is an added bonus. Now, I wanted to read this before the movie came out (and oh, look. I have!) so, in the next few months, I will reading Beautiful Chaos, the third book in the series. And from what I've heard, this is darker than Beautiful Darkness. And I can not wait!
I have been aware of Beautiful Creatures since it came out in 2010 (or was it 2009?). I heard the hype and seen the cover (pretty, isn't it?). So why have I not picked it up then? The size. Have you not seen it? It's 563 pages long! And it has TINY writing! It's a scary beast of a book! But I always kinda wanted to read it. So when the trailer for the movie version of Beautiful Creatures was revealed a few months ago (it's at the bottom of this review, FYI), and I thought"This movie looks awesome! I need to get my hands on this series and play catch up!". And when I told people I could find a copy of Beautiful Creatures in my local bookshops, the lovely Sya from Mountains of Instead got me a secondhand copy and sent it to me...
Again, I love being part of the YA book blogging community! Just saying!
So, in the small Southern US town of Gatlin, everyone seems to know everyone's business. They enjoy the reenactments of the American Civil War (or, it's in known in Gatlin, The War Between the States or The War of Northern Aggression). They enjoy going to church every Sunday and have an Us Vs Them to outsiders. And Ethan Wate wants out. Once he's finished school, he's gone. But when a mysterious newcomer, niece of the mysterious Macon Ravenwood, Ethan is instantly attached to Lena Duchannes. He's been seeing her in his dreams for months. But as the pair slowly fall in love, Ethan enters Lena's world. The world of Casters. The world where that sits under the town of Gatlin. The world where, on her sixteenth birthday, Lena's fate is decided. She will go either Light or Dark...
And in the end, there will be grave... The question is whose?
Right, let's get started on how I feel about this. And am going to be honest. I'm not sure. On very much on the fence. I do see the book's pros, but I do see its cons as well.
Ok, let's did with the cons as I think I might rant over these. I think they come down to two points. The length and Lena herself. With the length (563 pages, as I said before), there is so much in this book and yet, there were times the book dragged. I get from most people that this was a problem with them, so I'm not alone, and I completely get other people saying "this is world building" (and I can't fault that! The world building in this book was good and clever). But when the book did drag, I did wonder if these chapters were needed or if the book could have been tightened up a bit...
The second fault I had with Lena "You Don't Understand" Duchannnes. Out of all the female characters in the book, she was kinda weak (though she is fifteen). And if she used the phase (her catchphrase, really) "You don't understand" one more time...
However, this book does have good points! The character development and the world building within this book was really good. And the gothic, Southern feel to the book was wonderful! I loved that! It feel like how I felt a southern town in the United State would feel like. And the writing style - you would never know two people wrote this! Also, the characters. Most of the characters (even Lena up to a point...) were good characters and surprised me. And they have stand-out scene that make me very happy!
One of my fave scenes was when Mrs Lincoln (Ethan's best friend's mother) went toe-to-toe with Lena's uncle, Macon in a Law & Order courtroom-style. That made me so happy as the chapter was built on all the tensions that had affected the book from the very start and hinted dangerously to the end. And then, we have Ridley's scenes... she was always a fun character to read about, as is Link, Ethan's best friend.
I am going to finish the series. Of course I am! I already have Beautiful Darkness and Beautiful Chaos and, at the time of writing this, I have preordered Beautiful Redemption. But as the books are so thick (all are around 500 pages), I'm going to take my time over reading them. So, the course of next year and maybe early 2014, you will probably get the rest of the Caster Chronicles. But yeah, I will be very intriguied to see how the movie turns out...
When I said, quite casually on Twitter, that I was going to buy this, people of Twitter got upset. "But you haven't read the series!" they cried. "You're spoiling yourself if you read this series!" (my fave response was "NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT BLASPHEMY!") So, I have to explain why, even though I said I won't read it to several people on Twitter (*looks sheepish as the stares of @JeffreyWest & @CassJayTucker* hi).
Because I wanted to read it. Plus I do this all the time with series (have you not seen me attack the free short stories for the Soul Screamers series) so I can get the feel for the writing style so I know if I will get on with the series...
So, Dream Dark takes place between Beautiful Darkness and Beautiful Chaos so if you are reading this series, SPOILERS AHOY!
Following the events of Beautiful Darkness, something isn't right with Link. He seems to have gone off his food. He seems to have grown several inches taller. And when did he develop muscles like that from? And how did he heal from that bite so fast? Look out Gatlin, South Carolina, here comes the first Linkubus...
This is a story for the fans. I have to say this first and foremost so, if you're like me and know nothing of the series, BACK AWAY! This isn't for you.
But saying that though, I quite liked this story. Link was a fun character. Do you know how hard it is to find a fun character from a series which is quite dark? And the writing was good! Which solves me question over if I'm going to read the series or not...
Of course I was. I'm going to see the movie (It has Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis in it! And have you not see that pic of Emmy Rossum being Ridley?! THIS FILM BETTER BE RELEASED IN THE UK!!!) so, of course, I'm going to read the book.
My main problem is the length. I wish the short story was longer (TEASE THE FANS!). I spent 49p on this (not much, I know), but I want more money's worth. And if I was a fan of the series, I wouldn't want to pay this, only to get 56% of Beautiful Chaos teaser, which is a good teaser for those about to read Beautiful Chaos, but not me who hasn't read the series (I didn't read this so NO MORE spoilers than what I read [which by the time I read Beautiful Creatures, I would have COMPLETELY forgotten!]).
If you are a fan of the series (and/or you're lusting after Link), this is essential. If you're like me and unsure over the series, go to your local library or download a teaser of Beautiful Creatures on your eReader and see what you think...
PS - I wrote this several days before the Beautiful Creatures teaser trailer come out and the same song I chose as my theme song for Dream Dark was used on the teaser trailer! I'M PSYCHIC, PEOPLE!!!
Yes, I know I haven't read the Beautiful Creatures series, but I am SUPER EXCITED about the movie. I just love the idea of it. And, earlier today/yesterday, the teaser trailer was released!
OH MY GOD! Doesn't it look GREAT?! Sorry friends and family members of mine. We are going to watch this when it comes out! And I look like I have to attack my local bookshop/Amazon for the series (unless Puffin UK would like to treat me... ONLY JOKING, PUFFIN! Will happily buy this myself!). Sorry in advance to my poor bank account/credit card.
Also, it was revealed the poster!
I LOVE how the words Beautiful Creatures is in the same style as used on the US and UK covers!
So, reactions? Do you love the trailer? Or not? Or did you squeal when you heard Florence and the Machine? LEAVE COMMENTS AND LET ME KNOW!
