Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures, Book 1

By: Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The first book in the instant New York Times best-selling gothic fantasy series; a modern paranormal romance set against the gothic backdrop of an isolated southern town.

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.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2009 Kami Garcia (P)2009 Hachette

Great story, teen movie quality production.

I'm not usually a fan of supernatural romances, but I love this book. It was wonderful for the girl be the one with all the power. I loved the themes of family and finding yourself and being true to who you are. I found a lot of the extras that were added, the sound effects and so on were done fairly poorly and to be distracting. I honestly think I might have liked this book more if I had just read it as opposed to listening to this version.

disappointed

the narrator was great, the story had some great details and was very interesting until the end. i felt like there were parts that needed to be better explained and the ending could have been better after all of the anticipation

Awesome

Thank you for the excellent reading of an awesome store. You can almost see some of the characters in small towns!

I am a bit torn on this...

So I listened to this book a while ago and waited on writing the review because I really didn't know what to say about it. The long and short about it is that I find myself very much torn regarding whether I like this book or not. The narration was actually good, the story however it brought memories of Twilight... FYI: I am not a fan of sparkling vampires.

So the great part about this book was that the narration was pretty good, quite great actually. The deep southern drawl was quite perfect and each and every character in the book was given life due to the pitch perfect narration by this author. There is little fault I can find with the narration itself.

The story itself though... My concern is that even though the main character of the story has these amazing powers, she comes off as surprisingly weak to me. Whilst the leading male character is the exact opposite, powerless (magically speaking) but strong in an emotional sense. He almost seems like he is carrying her throughout the book which is amazing seeing that she is the one with the 'I can change weather' abilities. The love story aspect of books are generally overplayed if you ask me and the whole fated-yet-doomed lovers have never been high on my 'things to read' list. That being said the book has a number of interesting characters that you will find yourself notably fascinated by and I must applaud the writers for introducing them. The book has a lot of potential but I fear to appease the 'teen scene' and to kinda make a knock off version of Twilight it won't live up to it's potential. Average book though, with the potential to be really great.

Almost great.

This book has several great qualities, but is hampered by the flawed characterization of the protagonist. Assuming that "Beautiful Creatures" is the first novel in a long series, it does a wonderful job of creating a solid foundation to build on. The book's pace is slowed slightly , by a tremendous amount of quality description. The authors did a brilliant job creating an authentic, complex southern setting, for their well developed characters to inhabit. The story line is fairly straight forward with few nice twists. The audio book uses several pieces of music and sound effects to enhance the listener's experience. The only real flaw in this book is Eathan Wate. Which wouldn't be to bad, except the entire book takes place from his point of view. He is simply not believable as modern, male, high school athlete, even if he's intellectual and well read. His characterization was just slightly off. His thoughts and actions don't seem to be those of teen-aged heterosexual male.

Pretty good!

This was a fairly long audio book, and it kept my interest throughout. The story did not go where I thought that it might, so there were a few surprises.

The narrator was good, but some of the "southern" accents wore on me after a while - I am from South Carolina, and not everyone talks like this. :) Without knowing this was set in SC, I would have thought they were in Louisiana! :)

All in all, very good first book, and if there is a sequel, I would listen!

Good Book

I think that I will order the next book in the series, I did enjoy the book, I'm just not in a huge hurry to download the next.

loved it!! made me a fan! nothin like the movie

Where does Beautiful Creatures rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I really enjoyed this read/listen. There is so much to love about it. The theatrics were refreshing. I will look for more audio books from the this author, this narrarator and producer, lol. I chose this book cause i had watched the movie, but this book is nothing like the movie. They are so different from each other it could be a whole different story. 17 hrs of joy!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Creatures?

The song 16 moons plays instead of just being read, glass breaks, rain sounds. Its like listening in hd.

What about Kevin T. Collins’s performance did you like?

Every bit of his performance was awesome

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Ethans connection with his father, and how the loss of his mother distroyed thier relationship

Enjoyable yarn ..

If you could sum up Beautiful Creatures in three words, what would they be?

I enjoyed the story and the interview at the end was a nice bonus.

What does Kevin T. Collins bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The reader really brought it to life. Loved the dialects and vocal depictions.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

too late, already been done - going to see it in a few days when it opens :-)

Good read, great characters

Would you consider the audio edition of Beautiful Creatures to be better than the print version?

Yes, the narration , voices, and sound effects really made the story so much richer than reading the book.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Creatures?

Lenas win over the DAR and school board to get back into school.

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes