Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

There is a generic plotline which many teen fantasy authors following, veering off that path with only minute details. None of these things can ever occur in real life, but I suppose that's the point of fiction. It starts with a boy-meets-girl, then boy and girl slowly fall for each other and have a mystical connection which ends up being true love (told you it's fantasy-who finds their true love as a teenager?). This grand romance is blocked by the fact that one of them (usually him) is some sort of magical creature/under a curse which hinders their ability to live happily ever after. For the remainder of the book and all the sequels the couple strives to overcome their differences in species/break or thwart the curse while fighting an evil villain who is only evil because he/she was misunderstood but is still truly evil and never turning back. If any of the books end with the villain alive I can guarantee you there will be a sequel. Beautiful Creatures is only another one of these books that can be added to the already large pile.

Beautiful Creatures takes place in a tiny southern town where Ethan has lived his whole life. He has been having recurring dreams about a girl who he loves and loses in every dream and then-(this should be obvious) she moves to his tiny town!!! Except, Lena's the niece of the town shut-in so she becomes a social pariah before she could blink her beautiful eyes. Ethan is drawn to her (if you are wondering why, look back two sentences) and the two start hanging out, even though he keeps noticing weird things happening around her. Then he finds out about the curse, and Lena's cloudy future. And that's when things get interesting.

One thing that was different in Beautiful Creatures was the point of view which was from the guy's perspective. It was a little laughable to be privy to Ethan's innermost thoughts and feelings, especially because none of the authors have ever been a teenage boy. That isn't to say that a teenage girl's point of view would have been better, because those are done badly most of the time too. And at some point, I just got tired of hearing about how pretty Lena was. I was ready to scream "Seriously, I get it! She's gorgeous! And amazing! Now move on with your life!" Although the romance was sweet and it didn't want to make me barf.

3.6 stars. The writing was too simple for me and my aversion of characters younger than me annoyed me to no end.