GoodRead - Beautiful Creatures: The Manga

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.

GoodRead - Beautiful Darkness

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!

GoodRead - Beautiful Creatures

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...