Reviews

The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

ms_morri1's review against another edition

2.0

This is more like a 2.5 for me. As a reintroduction to vampires, this is not a bad one, but there were too many hints of Twilight in it that I’ve decided to quit while I’m ahead (which is what I wish I’d done with Twilight.) Having said this, I want to stress that Celine is NOT Bella. There’s no creepy stalking and Celine can hold her own against monsters, thank you very much.

Having said that, there were tropes that pop up in YA and vampire novels that really just make me very frustrated and not want to carry on the series. I liked Celine’s personal journey through this book and even though there were hints of a love triangle, she knew who she wanted to be with. However, this book does fall prey to the plot devices that separate the couple that will clearly end up together, turning the love triangle into the thing I hate most about them. I think this more than anything is what took it from a 4 star to a 3.5 for me.

Also, the mystery while there feels more like an afterthought, and... if you’re going to include a mystery, I feel like I should be able to have a theory of who the killer is, and not just told at the end with no real indication to who the villains are.

I didn’t hate this book, give me Celine over Bella any day. I just felt that the author didn’t push the vampire novel as far as she could have.

elvaira_ludina's review against another edition

3.0

Are we not, in 2023, past the need for love triangles? (I know this book was written in 2019, but you know what I mean)

angiereads_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

chimchooree's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.5

ijj's review against another edition

2.0

Well.....
What a nice way to get me interested. But no. In the beginning the book made me want to keep turning the pages...but at some point I started skipping pages. So I ended reading the ending. Which made me devasted.
So 2 stars

dreamingmalady's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

forever_fantasy's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

temporary_escaper's review against another edition

4.0

4.5✨

sara11_reads's review against another edition

3.0

I wasn't impressed with Celine at the beginning but she grew on me and I ended up liking this book more than I was expecting. All the characters were too young for their respective experiences though - it's like the author wrote a normal adult fantasy book and then her publisher decided to market it as YA and told her to make everyone a teenager by subtracting 5 years off their ages.

jconn4's review against another edition

4.0

Spoiler

I struggle between giving this book 3 and 4 stars. Maybe a 3.75? That sounds about right.

I’ve always been a bit wary of vampire books, due in part to the craze of vampire novels several years back. It was just never quite my cup of tea. That being said, the premise of this book intrigued me. Vampires in 1870s New Orleans? It sounded like something I could get behind.

And for the most part, I did! I managed to finish the book in a few days, and I must say, it did a good job of keeping me hooked just enough to keep turning pages. I was thoroughly entertained, even considering some of the book’s shortcomings.

Let’s start with setting. I loved the New Orleans setting, as well as the historical backdrop of the 1870s. It really helped the book attain the dark/playful/tempting atmosphere it was going for. All of the settings were described in beautiful detail (although the food descriptions were a bit much sometimes? But that’s just me).

I also thought the choice to never explicitly declare “hey there are vampires” until well into the novel was interesting. It basically begins by letting the reader know there are multiple different types of supernatural creatures here, not just vampires, which was great. It kept me guessing the supernatural identities of several characters throughout the story, which in turn, kept me invested. Given the ending, I feel the next installment will be much more vampire centric, but overall I just found the author’s subtlety to not only be a unique choice, but beneficial to the pacing and storytelling overall.

Transitioning now to critiques, I saw one reviewer mentioned “The Beautiful” gets a bit repetitive, and honestly, she hit the nail right on the head. Most of the book is Celine brooding over whether she’s allowed to be happy because she’s a “murderess” although she’s not sorry for what she did. And by the story’s end, every time Celine referred to Bastien as “beautiful” I laughed, because it happens THAT MANY TIMES. It wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying the characters or plot (tho Celine got a weeeee bit on my nerves from time to time), but it is something I also took note of and would like to see remedied in the next book.

I would also like to touch on the ending, hence the spoiler warning. Definitely had me turning pages, but I found myself confused. So Emilie is the evil mastermind who wants revenge against her brother? In no way did I see that coming, nor did I feel it was foreshadowed in such a way that it makes sense. I’m sure it’ll be touched on more in the next book, but it felt like it was just included as one more shock factor than anything else. And if Nigel’s a vampire, that makes me wonder as to the connection between them both? Since it would appear vampires and werewolves are at odds with one another. Also, Arjun completely disappeared for some reason? Am I forgetting a convenient reason for his absence, or was he just...gone for the last quarter of the book?

I feel more could be said, but since this review’s already getting kinda long, I’ll leave it at this. Although “The Beautiful” certainly has its flaws, it was quite an enjoyable read that always kept me invested in the story and characters. I can’t wait to see what happens in “The Damned”!