Review for Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Dangerous Creatures
SERIES: Dangerous Creatures #1
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: May 20, 2014
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 368 pages
FORMAT: eARC
SOURCE: Publisher via NetGalley
RATING: 2 bows

Ridley Duchannes is a bad girl, the absolute worst. A siren with enough juice to persuade anyone to do as she bids, she’s out for her own. But after losing a poker game, she’s in a world of shit and she can’t seem to get out on her own. Wesley “Link” Lincoln just wants to make it big in the big bad city. Off to New York to start a new band (or join a band) on his way to fame and success. Link, though, is a southern gentleman at heart and he also really wants to be with Ridley. Can the two love birds make it work or are they going to crash and burn in NYC?

I’ve been avoiding writing this particular review because I have only negative things to say. I hate writing negative reviews on books I got just to review. X_X I might as well get it over with, right? Ridley and Link are just the same as they have always been, but we get a few new cast members here. I honestly won’t go into details about them because I didn’t love any of them and that’s part of where this series failed as a spin-off. With Beautiful Creatures (and it sequels) I loved most of the characters and generally wanted their success and happiness. Here I was pretty ambivalent about the new people. Hell, I was even a bit ambivalent about Ridley herself. Her determination to remain a “bad” girl and the idea that it was all she was capable of doing drove me fucking nuts. She refuses to even try to be better. And we all know she is capable of more, but she is just so damn stubborn. It really made me sad because I loved Rid in Beautiful Creatures & Beautiful Darkness.

The only cast member I really loved was Link. Sweet, devoted Link. He should irritate me. He’s a pretty stereotypical southern boy, but he’s got so much charm that it just works somehow. That’s probably why I was still rooting for the Rid/Link duo, because I wanted to see him happy. But we don’t get that here. This veers straight into love triangle (square) land, with both Ridley and Link finding new love interests, but somehow still being interested in each other. It was a bit confusing because it was clear they were both moving on and then the thing at the end? WTF?

Another issue for me was this was exceedingly boring. I know I received an eARC for review, but I just couldn’t get through it. I ended up getting an audiobook copy and listening to it almost entirely that way. Even with audio, it was a struggle to get through. I didn’t care about the characters. Without a connection to them, it is hard to muster up emotions about their journey.

Then there is the villian. I won’t say who he is, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s the same one as the previous books, which was another problem for me. How many fucking times do we need to kill this guy?!? And then there is the horrid cliffhanger ending that you don’t see coming. You don’t see it coming because when it ends, the audiobook still has well over an hour of time left (which is obnoxiously filled with excepts from Kami’s & Margaret’s other books). But the thing is over and it is a cliffhanger from hell and I wanted to punch my computer when it happened.

I know I am OCD about finishing series, especially ones that I once loved, but I don’t know that I will read any more of these books. Things for me starting going downhill in Beautiful Chaos and they have just kept rolling downwards. This was no improvement. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad story, but I’ve come to expect more out of Ridley and she just doesn’t delivery. Maybe you’ll love it to bits, but it just pissed me off.

****Thank you to Little, Brown Books For Young Readers for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review****

Review for Dangerous Dream (Dangerous Creatures #0.5) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Dangerous Dream
SERIES: Dangerous Creatures #0.5
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: December 17, 2013
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 46 pages
FORMAT: eARC
SOURCE: Publisher via NetGalley
RATING: 3 bows

They finally made it, they are graduating high school. This novella follows Ethan, Lena, Link, and Ridley through the former three’s high school graduation. They battled the world and still somehow made time for homework and studying. Woooohhoooo! Now, as things are wrapping up, everything isn’t perfect in Caster-land, with obvious tension between Rid and Link, can they finally settle their issues or is their relationship doomed to failure?

I knew in the last two novels that Ridley was starting to get on my nerves. She was one of my favorite characters in Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness, but things starting going badly in Beautiful Chaos and I’m sad to say they haven’t improved yet. Ridley persistently gets on my nerves now and being in her head made it ten times worse. She’s selfish, sometimes stupid, and has that “I’m a bad girl so I have to play the bad girl role…even if I don’t want to!” attitude that made me want to punch her in the face. Add to that the over-the-top arrogance and I’ve just had enough. She gets herself in a lot of trouble here. A LOT of trouble. She gets in deep with the wrong crowd and now she owes favors to the worst kind of people.

Everyone else was fine. You get just a bit more from Ethan and Lena before the perspectives switch and they were just as delightful as ever. Even Link was awesome. I really liked getting his perspective. You’d think he’d annoy me, being an almost stereotypical southern gentleman, but he plays the role with such enthusiasm that it’s impossible to not love him. He oozes southern charm in such an obliviously blatant way that it just works for him. Creating such a character seems like a difficult task because there are so many ways it could backfire, so this little novella made me appreciate him that much more.

I do question the writing on the front. This says “A Beautiful Creatures Story” on the cover but it’s boasted as the beginning novella to the Dangerous Creatures saga, so which is it? All you really need to know is that if you loved the previous books and all the characters involved, then you will enjoy this as well. If you didn’t enjoy them, the steer clear of this as well!

****Thank you to Little, Brown Books For Young Readers for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review****

Review for Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles #4) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Beautiful Redemption
SERIES: Caster Chronicles #4
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: October 23, 2012
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 456 pages
FORMAT: Audiobook / Hardback
SOURCE: Borrowed / Purchased
RATING: 4 stars

Ethan Wate has spent the majority of his life fighting to get out of Gatlin SC, to go off to college and see the world and never permanently return to this southern life. Now, he’s fighting to get back home. After swan-diving off the water tower to save everyone he loves, he finds that death is quite a bit like life. Most of the dead is present, in their Gatlin-like homes attempting to finish their unfinished business. Now, Ethan is more determined than ever to find a way back from the grave and Lena is doing everything she can from the other side to help. Can these two defy the laws of nature to be together?

Like this last novel, this was a bit hit and miss for me. Once again, we get the same old gang, with a few new additions. We finally get to really meet Lila Evers Wate in the afterlife and Amma’s greats. We get a few new underworld allies, but it’s more or less the same group as it ever was fighting. This time they aren’t really fighting for good or evil, but more to reunite Ethan and Lena because….they can’t live without each other? Don’t get me wrong, I wanted a happy ending to this series and this gives us that, but they defy more than one of nature’s laws here and it’s all for personal gain, which I think is a big no-no. The story does have a romantic twinge, with Ethan literally fighting his way back from death to be with Lena because he loves her so much.

It’s written in that same fascinating way the rest of the series is, with Garcia and Stohl becoming the perfect writing duo, but I had a few issues. There is my obligatory spill on character death because another beloved character dies. Not one of the main six, but it broke my heart nonetheless. When one of the sisters died in the last book, it was a major downer, but this was worse.

My other main issue is that this wasn’t as enrapturing as the others had been. I wasn’t really invested in the story. Maybe I’m annoyed at the characters? Maybe it’s because the plot was so predictable it was impossible to not see how it was going to end? I don’t really know the why, all I can tell you is that I didn’t put in extra effort into finishing this. I listened to the majority of it on audiobook (I got my book out and read the last 50 or so pages, but the rest was all audio). I’m an audio addict. It started as a way to help consume books during my lunch hour but still have time to eat and let the dogs out and so on. Most of the time, I end up listening to whatever book it is outside the normal lunch hour. Take Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, which is what I’m currently listening to. I listen at lunch and then I usually come home and listen for another hour afterwork while I do housework and I have to force myself to stop. That’s how I usually am with audiobooks, it’s so effortless that I find myself listening more and more, but it wasn’t the case with this. I listened for my lunch hour everyday, but no more. I didn’t go out of my way at all to get just a few more minutes in.

This novel wraps most everything in this series up in a nice little bow. You get the conclusion we have been waiting on since we finished the first book and it’s nice and neat, but somehow not perfect. This series started out with great promise and though it remains a solid 4-star series to me, my love for it has dwindled a bit. The announcement of Ridley’s book next in a new spinoff series excited me a great deal, but having already read it as well, I can say that maybe I need to just leave this world be because it’s all downhill from here.

Review for Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles #3) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Beautiful Chaos
SERIES: Caster Chronicles #3
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: October 18, 2011
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 516 pages
FORMAT: Audiobook / Hardback
SOURCE: Borrowed / Purchased
RATING: 4 stars

Ethan Wate’s life is never going to be normal. He and Lena return home to find things are stranger in Gatlin than when they left. Apparently Lena broke things a bit when she refused to choose a side and now everything has gone pear-shaped. And even worse, Ethan is being haunted both in dreams and in real life and he’s slowly losing himself. The gang needs to get things together and quick because the wheel of fate is going to crush them all if they don’t make things right.

I’m at a bit of a loss for what to say here. We get the same cast that we had in the previous novels, with more of John Breed and Olivia. They are on a journey to set the order of things straight again since Lena fucked them up when she “skipped” her moon. I still love Ethan and Lena and their relationship, but it’s far from perfect and that shows here more than ever. Ethan spent much of the last book with Olivia because Lena ran off with John and now he isn’t allowed to see her because it upsets Lena. So we have this sorta-not-really love triangle thing happening that irritated me to no end. But Lena has no qualms talked to John Breed even though it’s the exact same situation as Ethan and Liv. Which pissed me off. Then the predictable thing happens.****SPOILER****John turns out to be a “good” guy who was being controlled by Abraham and he falls head over heels for Liv. I hate how they get together seemingly just to make them all pair up. Ethan and Lena, Link and Ridley, and ooops….John and Liv are left out so let’s just push them together, right? Okay…ooo…look aren’t they cute? All joking aside, they do have a bit in common, but I hate how it happened nonetheless****END SPOILER****

Then there is the whole Link and Ridley situation in general. Rid is human now and Link is quarter incubus, so you’d think the majority of the problems are solved, right? Rid can be good and Link can be her almost human boyfriend and they ride off into the proverbial sunset, yeah?

Or not…..

FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK. Is that too much to ask? To have Link and Ridley finally get their shit together. Or rather, to have Ridley finally get her shit together? This was a big forshadowing moment in my lifetime that I missed because from this point on, my opinion of Ridley just sinks lower and lower. That’s a depressing thing because I really liked her in Beautiful Creatures, despite the fact that she was a quasi-villain and she redeems herself a tad in Beautiful Redemption…but then she falls again and I just want to punch her in the fucking face.

Besides my obvious hangups about characters, this novel has one big issues, the huge motherfucking cliffhanger. This books ends in quite possibly the worst cliffhanger I have ever read. Now, I know what you are all thinking: But Tabitha, don’t you already have a copy of the next book? Isn’t the audiobook queued up just waiting on this to end? Yes, it is, but it’s the goddamn principle. I know a lot of people read these books as soon as they were released and I cannot imagine having to wait for a year or more to find out what happens next. This is not fucking necessary. It’s infuriating. I’ve been letting cliffhangers slide lately, but this was over the line.

Despite my anger and my issues, this was still a highly enjoyable installment of the Caster Chronicles. You get a bit of mystery and a bit of action and a lot of Ethan/Lena romance. You get more of that swoon-worhty southern charm that is Ethan Wate. Just be warned that you’ll want to have the next novel close on hand because the ending leaves a lot to be desired.

Review for Dream Dark (Caster Chronicles #2.5) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Dream Dark
SERIES: Caster Chronicles #2.5
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: August 2, 2011
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 75 pages
FORMAT: Audiobook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 4 stars

This novella follows Link in during his realization that he was bitten by a supernatural being and is now an incubus. This includes running around the Caster tunnels and lots of facetime with Macon.

It’s an interesting way to tell Link’s tale because it’s still told via Ethan’s voice, even in scenes where Link is alone. Link has been a favorite character of mine since book one, as has Macon, so the fact that we get lots of time with both here made overjoyed me. This is also the first thing from this series I’ve read since I’ve seen the film and I’m delighted to inform everyone that this still holds as much appeal as before. I was scared that the film may have ruined the books for me because they changed so much. Also because, since it’s been a long time since I’ve read the first two books, I get some of the details confused or I just plain forget them. This little novella brings it all back with startling clarity.

Not only does it tell a new story from a new “perspective” but it also reminded me of the fact that I loved the first two novels. Really, if you loved the first two novels, than this will be right up your alley. I can’t wait to dive into Beautiful Chaos, which I happen to already have a hardback edition of as well as the audiobook. :))

Review for Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Beautiful Darkness
SERIES: Caster Chronicles #2
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: October 12, 2010
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown, And Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc
PAGES: 503 pages
FORMAT: Hardback
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 4 stars

We pick up pretty closely after the ending of Beautiful Creatures. Ethan and Lena struggle to hold on to their relationship despite the constant turmoil of Lena’s life and all the unknown facts Ethan discovers about his and his families past. But the death of Macon was too much to take and soon Lena is pulling away and Ethan is having visions of Macon’s past. Now the countdown to Lena’s seventeenth moon has begun and no one knows what the future holds for her.

Rating this book was just as hard as rating the first. From the moment I started this story, I was instantly irritated at it. The pacing was much slower than the first book with a lot less action in the beginning. For most of the novel, I was reviewing it in my head, watching its star rating drop lower and lower as I thought up scathing things to say to warn people to stay far away. I felt like the authors were hiding in a dark corner, laughing manically because they knew I was suffering. I could hear them whispering in my head, “Ha! We fooled you! We gave you a great first that lacked the things you hate and now, just when we have lulled you into a false sense of security, we are going to throw every cliché you loathe right at you!”

The hero and heroine splitting up, love triangles, angsty angsty angst. Not to mention the amount of southern clichés that are so in your face, I have a hard time ignoring them. I live in the goddamn south, in a relatively small town (so small there is one lonely grocery story and not a single fast food restaurant) and I can assure you that I don’t know half the people there, much less every single one and all the gossip associated with them. I can attest that there are plenty of small-minded individuals here, but not everyone is. I’m almost insulted by the way they describe their world.

The more I read, the anger I became. Lena’s being a fucking moron, Ethan is just letting it happen, Link is so hung up over Ridley, he can’t see straight, and then they introduce a new female character who is naturally attracted to Ethan. Lena ends up running off with another Caster/Incubus hybrid and the tale is a clusterfuck of everything any book with Middle Book Syndrome has. There were parts where I just had to read something else because the urge to stop completely was too much to take.

Then, about 400 pages in (a pretty long way to go to get to the good parts, I know), things started to get better. Ethan stops being an idiot and goes after Lena. Link & Liv (the new annoying point on the triangle) follow him to what appears to be a make believe land and they battle darkness to save Lena. The last 100 or so pages are well worth the annoyances of the preceding ones. Everything comes together in ways I wasn’t expecting ****SPOILER****AND MACON IS ALIVE!!!!
NOT DEAD NOT DEAD NOT DEAD!!!! Sorry, but he was my favorite character and I’m beyond thrilled that I’ll get to see more of him in the next book.****END SPOILER****

I really recommend it for anyone who enjoyed the first novel. Yes, it goes downhill pretty fast, but if you can make it through the bad bits, there is a surprise waiting for you at the end!

Review for Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Beautiful Darkness
SERIES: Caster Chronicles #1
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: December 1, 2009
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown, And Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc
PAGES: 563 pages
FORMAT: Hardback
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 4 stars

Beautiful Creatures follows Ethan Wate around his small southern town. Tired of being in a place where nothing unexpected ever happens, he can’t wait to graduate and go to college far far away. Then Lena Duchannes moves to town and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly not so accurate anymore. Lena is a witch, but they prefer the term Caster. Apparently in her family, on your sixteenth birthday, you and your powers are Claimed for either the light or the dark and you get no say in the matter. We follow Ethan and Lena on their fight to either allow Lena to choose her side at her claiming or to make sure she goes Light.

I really wanted to give this book 5 stars. I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those books that sucks you in and you spend every spare second you get digging it out of your bag so you can read just a tinsy bit more. I can’t give it 5 stars though because of a few small problems. The biggest one being the cliffhanger. I know I haven’t been deducting for that lately, but considering this book is almost 600 pages, it had ample time to wrap the story up properly. I’m not entire sure it really counts as a cliffhanger, but it just didn’t feel like the story ended properly and that really irritates me. The other reason is my favorite character died. I won’t tell you who, but it upset me so much. I knew that there would probably be a casualty or two, but I wasn’t expecting this person to be one of them.

What did I like? I really liked Ethan. Southern gentleman all the way, but without the accent, I’m in heaven. I was pleasantly shocked when I started reading and realized that the novel is told entirely through his perspective. I was expecting to get Lena (which you do get a tinsy bit from her at the end) and I was wrong. Ethan’s perspective is entirely believable. He is the only male character I have ever read that really felt male despite the lack of suggestive thoughts and naughty language. Lena, well, I can’t make my mind up about her. One minute I’m sympathetic because of all the shit she is going through, but that doesn’t stop me from being enraged when she fucking pulls away from Ethan. Hello? There is a point where one of your relatives states that no caster could come between the two of you and that somehow he protects you, yet you still think it’s too dangerous? Come on, smarty pants, you can do better than that. Luckily, that bit doesn’t last long, but it still made me want to smack her.

I loved almost all of the characters in this story, from Ethan to Link to Amma to Macon, even Ridley. They all make the story that much better for being there. And who can forget the infamous Boo Radley! No, not the character from How To Kill A Mockingbird, but a dog named after that character. I’m a sucker for a cute pooch and this mutt isn’t above that.

The writing is beautiful and the mystery of it all really drew me. It was a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was still amazing. I loved that unlike most witch novels, everything isn’t explained to us in the very beginning with a hard to process chunk of information, instead you get only the bits and pieces Lena is willing to allow Ethan to see. Which is not the entire truth by any means. Even after 560 pages, there is still a great deal about L and her world that we don’t understand.

After reading this, I’m even more excited for the movie. Though, as always, I’ve very apprehensive of what they will change and how I’ll take the changes. I can already see that some things they got right and some not. Jeremy Irons playing Macon is, I think, absolutely perfect. The same goes for Viola Davis playing Amma. The actor they chose for Ethan, well I’m not happy about it yet. All I can say definitively is that he isn’t what I pictured and he isn’t tall enough. I’m trying to hold out on final judgment until I see the film and his acting skill because who knows, he may amaze me. Same goes for Lena. She is closer to what I pictured, though with the wrong hair and eye color, I’m holding out hope that they will all exceed my expectations.