Mad Musings On: Beautiful Creatures By Kami Garcia And Margaret Stohl

THE BLURB: 

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

MAD MUSINGS: 

I used this book as an experiment of sorts - I wanted to see if watching the movie first would have any impact on whether or not I liked the book.  I did this because I was hearing from other people who love the series how disappointed they were with the movie!   I thought the movie trailer looked great, so I didn't want to go into it jaded.  So my Hubby and I went on a Valentine's date to see this movie on the opening weekend.  We both quite enjoyed it, although I had questions about some of the characters and the plot, which was to be expected.  

Well, not far into reading Beautiful Creatures, I could already see some of the differences, although to me it's minor things like appearances and, yes, the movie peeps combines a couple of characters into one onscreen person.    That happens more than once, as it turns out.  But I can also understand the reasons the movie bigwigs would do that - it makes the story less complicated by having to track fewer characters - keep it to the main people and the main story line!   Of course there's also the omitted scenes from the book that we always cry out "Why didn't they include this in the movie?"  Personally, I would've liked to see the Winter Ball scene - but I guess it doesn't really advance the main story all that much, so it ends up being deleted - maybe it'll show up in deleted scenes, when DVD release time arrives?  Time will tell...

So, about the book.... I really was surprised at how different Book Ethan was from Movie Ethan.  He was so funny in the movie, and not as much in the book.  But it was kind of cool to see the way the guy feels about a new relationship in a YA book for a change.    I mean, for the most part he wasn't even sure she was his girlfriend!  It makes me want to just whisper in his ear "Dude, you're spending all your time with her, kissed several times, and holding hands.... she's definitely a girlfriend YEESH!"

What I'm still confused about with the book, is the ending.  The movie has a totally different ending, which I though was pretty cool, but the book didn't even hint at that.  Where did producers pull that from?  Is it in the next book, Beautiful Darkness?   Well, I suppose I'm just going to have to read that one to find out....

**** 4 stars

**On a personal note, Margaret Stohl was another of the fabulous authors I had the privilege to meet at the Smart Chicks tour last fall.  She was a delight and kept us all laughing with her hilarious antics.  I was really hoping that some of her sense of humour would appear in her writing, and I was not disappointed :)