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A review by katereads2much
Beautiful Darkness by Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia
2.0
Warning: There are spoilers here, but the big ones are for the first book/movie so I'm not hiding them. You've been warned.
Book two of the Caster Chronicles was a little tougher for me to get through than the first one. I didn't have an easy time with the first one, but that was partially because I'd seen the movie already and enough lined up that a lot of the "surprises" were "ruined" for me. There was a lot that was different so I'm glad I saw it through and it left me curious enough to go onto the next one.
The best way to describe my frustration with this book is that it felt very similar to [b:New Moon|49041|New Moon (Twilight, #2)|Stephenie Meyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361039440s/49041.jpg|3203964]. I was a Twihard, so I'm not about to go into a Twilight series book bashing, but the second one was hard to read. It was frustrating to see two people not together for dumb reasons after they'd already fought their way through so much. I always felt a little insulted about that plotline, and the plot of this book is similar enough that it brought up all those feelings of frustration and annoyance again.
Lena is struggling, and she has legitimate reasons to struggle, but after everything Ethan went through with and for her (the man *insert explicative that starts with the letter 'f'* died), and everything she sacrificed to keep him with her (she brought him back to life for fudge's sake), and she just goes tramping off with some sketchy dude who promises her he'll always be with her? Like Ethan didn't fulfill his promise to always be with her. Like he didn't do everything he could to be her safety and her support and to love her no matter what.
Not gonna lie, I spent this entire book--all sixteen hours--saying, "WTF, Lena?!" She gets all handsy with the sketchy dude, tells Ethan she doesn't want him around, and then berates and punishes him for thinking about kissing a girl who is kind and funny and his friend? *Fill in this space with a string of curse words and a sentence involving what Lena can do with herself.* Honestly? I don't like Lena right now, not even a little bit, and no part of this book won me back in regards to her.
But I do love Ethan, I really do. And I love Link to pieces (Linc? I'm listening to the books, so I'm not sure about the spelling of his name) because he might be a bit of a pig in some ways, he's also incredibly loyal and brave. The addition of Olivia has been fun, and I deeply relate to her and her librarian ways (it probably doesn't help my opinion of Lena that she is so cruel to and about Olivia). Plus Ridley is an interesting character, and her storyline has me intrigued.
It's weird that I can dislike a character so much and still want to see her with a character I love. I did really like Lena in the first one, and I want Ethan to be happy, so I'm still rooting for them as a couple. We'll see how I feel at the end of the next book.
Book two of the Caster Chronicles was a little tougher for me to get through than the first one. I didn't have an easy time with the first one, but that was partially because I'd seen the movie already and enough lined up that a lot of the "surprises" were "ruined" for me. There was a lot that was different so I'm glad I saw it through and it left me curious enough to go onto the next one.
The best way to describe my frustration with this book is that it felt very similar to [b:New Moon|49041|New Moon (Twilight, #2)|Stephenie Meyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361039440s/49041.jpg|3203964]. I was a Twihard, so I'm not about to go into a Twilight series book bashing, but the second one was hard to read. It was frustrating to see two people not together for dumb reasons after they'd already fought their way through so much. I always felt a little insulted about that plotline, and the plot of this book is similar enough that it brought up all those feelings of frustration and annoyance again.
Lena is struggling, and she has legitimate reasons to struggle, but after everything Ethan went through with and for her (the man *insert explicative that starts with the letter 'f'* died), and everything she sacrificed to keep him with her (she brought him back to life for fudge's sake), and she just goes tramping off with some sketchy dude who promises her he'll always be with her? Like Ethan didn't fulfill his promise to always be with her. Like he didn't do everything he could to be her safety and her support and to love her no matter what.
Not gonna lie, I spent this entire book--all sixteen hours--saying, "WTF, Lena?!" She gets all handsy with the sketchy dude, tells Ethan she doesn't want him around, and then berates and punishes him for thinking about kissing a girl who is kind and funny and his friend? *Fill in this space with a string of curse words and a sentence involving what Lena can do with herself.* Honestly? I don't like Lena right now, not even a little bit, and no part of this book won me back in regards to her.
But I do love Ethan, I really do. And I love Link to pieces (Linc? I'm listening to the books, so I'm not sure about the spelling of his name) because he might be a bit of a pig in some ways, he's also incredibly loyal and brave. The addition of Olivia has been fun, and I deeply relate to her and her librarian ways (it probably doesn't help my opinion of Lena that she is so cruel to and about Olivia). Plus Ridley is an interesting character, and her storyline has me intrigued.
It's weird that I can dislike a character so much and still want to see her with a character I love. I did really like Lena in the first one, and I want Ethan to be happy, so I'm still rooting for them as a couple. We'll see how I feel at the end of the next book.