Beautiful Creatures: Garcia & Stohl

Garcia, Kami, and Margaret Stohl. Beautiful Creatures. Little, Brown, 2013.

PERSONAL RESPONSE AND SUMMARY:

An entire world in one book, that’s the usual experience, not so this time. In B.C. the reader is given two worlds; the Mortal world of Gatlin South Carolina where where nothing ever changes, and those who leave never come back, where there are “only two kinds of people, those who are bound to stay or too dumb to go, everyone else finds a way out.” (Garcia & Stohl pg 1). The second world, that of the Casters flows underneath the surface of the Mortal world, Dark and Light, Green and Gold. The story follows Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes, a Mortal and a Caster. Their story echoes through time, from 1864 to their present day. Lena is doomed to be Claimed, Dark or Light, on her 16th birthday with no choice in the matter. Dreading going Dark after losing her cousin to it, Lena fights fate everyday, with Ethan by her side. No matter how hard she pushes him away to save him he is by her side.

Niece of the town shut-in, Macon Ravenwood, Lena’s social future in Gatlin is doomed from the start. Ethan, star of the basketball team turns from the people he’s known all his life to stand by her. Ethan’s parents are scholars and writers, his mom recently killed in a car wreck and his father slowly unraveling in her absence, Ethan is different from those he grew up with, he sees through the drama and pageantry of small town life, always yearning for the day he can leave it all behind.

Through ups and downs, expulsion attempts, growing Caster powers, Carrie-like school dance pranks, and the ever looming Battle of Honey Hill Reenactment Ethan and Lena grow closer to each other and closer to her birthday. On that fateful night Lena’s mother shows up, revealing that she had been possessing one of the “upright town ladies” for months, spearheading the campaign against Lena, trying to get her to forsake the Mortals and go Dark.  The events of the night echo those of the Honey Hill Battle in 1864, when Ethan’s ancestor was killed in front of the love of his life, Lena’s ancestor. Genevieve casts Dark magic trying to bring him back, which results in a curse on the generations of Duchannes’ women to follow. They are Claimed for Dark or Light with no choice in the matter, and every generation one woman will become the Darkest Caster, this time around is Serafine, Lena’s mother.

When all is said and done Ethan lives, his death traded for that of Lena’s beloved Uncle Mason Ravenwood, Lena Claims herself, neither Dark or Light but a blending of the two, Serafine and her conspirators disappear into the night, and we are left with Ethan and Lena. Together, yet drifting into the unknown consequences of the breaking of the curse.

PERSONAL RESPONSE:
I really enjoyed this book, the beginning of a series of 4, I will be devouring the next three as soon as possible. I think it has some very complex world building, and elegant storytelling. The imagery of a South stuck in the past, unable to concede defeat in anything even more than 100 years later, the slow building of a completely believable relationship and trust between Lena and Ethan. All supernatural elements aside the story between Ethan and Lena is excellent, in a time when many YA books have ridiculously serious relationships for their young protagonists, physically and emotionally, this story is slow building, layered with examples of trust, and both mature and immature decisions. I love that the authors kept the relationship to the minimally physical, I love that the most important relationships in this book are those of family, and best friends, real solid loyalty and trust.

CONNECTIONS:

I think that this book would be appropriate in a classroom, either secondary or higher education. It is beautifully written with excellent imagery, and important ideas of what it means to be a young adult, and what it looks like to stand up to bullying and stand for what is right. The book is filled with excellent literary quotes from the character Marian, the head librarian, and sparked my interest enough in them that I looked some of them up. It also has a strong emphasis on the importance of journaling and the help that it can be in a tough situation.