Review : Beautiful Creatures By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Ratings:3 of 5 stars 

"Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures." 
I feel so guilty giving this just 3 stars. So many people seem to like it and I feel like maybe I missed something important that everyone else got.

Ethan is counting the days until he can finally escape his mundane life in the
little Southern town of Gatlin. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever happens. Until (yeah, you know you saw that coming) a girl named Lena, with curly black hair driving a hearse changes everything. She's different, that's for sure. And the people of Gatlin don't take kindly to people that are different. Ethan can't help but be drawn to her, like they have an unexplainable connection. Ethan soon finds out that different doesn't even begin to describe Lena's life. She has powers. Not only that, but everything Ethan thought he knew about Gatlin and his place in the town is turned upside down. Not to mention that Ethan has been having some pretty crazy realistic dreams that seem to be telling him that he's going to have to deal something even more dangerous and terrifying than the mothers of the
DAR and the resident Ice Queen (literally, she wins that title every homecoming), Savannah Snow and her adoring cronies.

Okay, here it my take on the story.
It is good. The story plays out well. It has a great and very colorful cast of well-defined characters.The setting is also well defined and very fitting to the story. Here is what I didn’t like. The length. Ugh.I can’t even tell you how long it took me to read this. It’s looong. Long, long, long.So overall, not bad but it just didn’t capture me. I found myself groaning at the thought of having to
read this ginormous book's sequel(so I might not read it at all).But don't let that stop you.

Where She Went By Gayle Forman

Ratings:4.5 of 5 stars

Wow! Where She Went is an intense and breathtaking read.This story really got under my skin. It consumed my thoughts and I HAD TO read it all in one sitting otherwise I would have been a complete mess.

In Where She Went, we face the aftermath of the recovery and begin to wonder whether Mia really survived the crash as it becomes evident that choosing to live is only half the battle. This story takes place three years after the crash and Mia’s physical recovery. She’s a rising star at Juilliard and Adam is a celebrity of the rock band Shooting Star that finds himself at a crossroads. The story is told in Adam’s perspective and begins the night he makes a choice to revisit the muse of his success after Mia left him.  Chance brings them together for one more night and this novel chronicles those precious twenty-four hours together and Mia and Adam get down to what’s really important. What an incredibly insightful look at the grieving process, and a realistically stark one at that. I know that I felt that loss as I read, felt the powerlessness, but I also felt the hope, the ambition to live and love.I loved reading from Adam's point of view. The writing was so, so good. Some moments were really intense. And I felt like I could feel everything he was going through. His love, anger, loneliness, and anxiety. 

So now, all I’m saying is Thank you, Gayle Forman. You've given me characters that made me hurt, made me sad, and finally made me smile.

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Review: If I Stay By Gayle Forman

If I Stay By Gayle Forman

Ratings:4.5 of 5 stars

Cascade of emotions just poured on me throughout the book.I literally buried my face and cried a little at the end.Seriously, it was painfully beautiful.This book is bittersweet. Hot and cold, funny and depressing, heart-warming and sob-inducing. It's the perfect roller-coaster, a prime example of how powerful writing can be. I adored everything about it except that there is no real plot to the book.

If I Stay is a journey through life and death, in the eyes of a young girl who has lost just about everything.Although I’d read the synopsis multiple times, I never really “got” what the story was until I read the first chapter when it all happens.Mia and her family, father, Mother and younger brother go for a drive on a sunny morning after a light snowfall the night before. In a moment, their world is turned upside down in the form of a devastating car crash.Mia finds herself watching her mangled body being pulled from the crash and follows what takes place in the hospital as she decides if she should stay in this life or to move on like the rest of her family.
Lastly, the struggle in this book is all Mia’s, lest I try to make anyone think otherwise. This story is hers, and we accompany her on the journey -- however ridden with pain and uncertainty it is. The title itself is far more telling than one would assume.

This book was beautiful. Packed with so much living, dying, loving, crying....Not necessarily
in that order.Read for yourself to find out which path Mia takes. ;) Really, it’s a book that you won’t regret reading.
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