Beautiful Creatures: Book 1
Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Released: 2009
Taking place in Gatlin, South Carolina, Ethan Wate is just a regular boy trying to get out of the small town he grew up in. His mom passed away in a car accident a little less than a year before, his dad is shutting him out, and Amma, his family’s close friend, is trying to protect him, but he doesn’t know why. He has had the same friends he was bored, and he is growing bored and tired of the same old thing and has a map in his room of all the places he wants to visit. Nothing ever happens in this town, until one day, the niece of the town’s very own “Boo Radley” moves in. No one knows her, no one likes her, and no one gives her a chance. Everyone assumes she must be weird in order to know Macon Ravenwood. Lena Duchannes has a struggle of her own, though. She is far from normal, although that’s all she wants to be. As Ethan and Lena become closer and closer, Ethan begins to realize just how different she really is. As he tries to figure out who and what she is, he faces rejection from everyone he knows in his small town. No one in the town wants her there, and they do not make that a secret. As Lena’s secrets begin to come undone, such as her family history and her struggle with the good and the evil, and the light and the dark, Ethan begins to see that everyone he thought he knew is turning out to be different, including his mom. Ethan and Lena constantly face love and loss, light and dark, safety and danger, and it brings them closer together.
The book had me sucked in from page one and I didn’t want to put it down. The well written story line is filled with interesting with unexpected twists, and is an innovative take on the newly popular witch/vampire theme in teen literature.
Rating 4.5/5
Beautiful Creatures: Movie 1
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Released: February 14, 2013
I walked into the movie theatre excited to see this movie based off of this book that I love. Only five minutes into the movie, I almost got up and walked out. Already they had found ways to change the movie from the book. They changed and combined characters, took other characters out completely, and added in events that never happened.
I’ve seen a lot of movies that have been based off of books, and yes, I realize that they have time constraints and only a certain amount of money. Nevertheless, if you are going to base a film off a book, you should at least make the movie slightly resemble the novel.
If I had gone into that movie without having read the book, I might have walked away thinking it was a decent movie. But I did read the book, and I was more than a little disappointed. The acting wasn’t awful, and the story was okay, but it was very different than the book, and I went in thinking it was based off the book.
The ending was changed to the point that they did not leave much room for a sequel, even though there are already four books in the series. Hopefully the next film will be better, but we’re just going to have to wait and see.
Rating: 2/5