The Beautiful

By: Renée Ahdieh

Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo

The first book—an instant bestseller—in the sumptuous, sultry, and romantic YA vampire series from New York Times bestselling author Renee Ahdieh.

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent, Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city becoming embroiled in the glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain.

When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in Sébastien's own lair—the second dead girl to turn up in recent weeks—Celine must battle her attraction to Sébastien and suspicions about his guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

©2019 Renée Ahdieh (P)2019 Listening Library

Critic reviews

“The Beautiful, which kicks off a new series, returns the vampire novel to popular form, evoking the style of Anne Rice and breathing fresh life into the genre.”—Entertainment Weekly

“It's true: Vampires are back, and they're more seductive than ever.”—Bustle

“Ahdieh brings New Orleans vibrantly to life, particularly when exploring the complicated racial and gender restrictions of high society through main and supporting characters of mixed-race origin. Sure to please fans of the author and of the vampire-romance genre.”—Kirkus

Lyrical, dark and rich in details

Lots of detail setting the scene, a little slow to get going but worth it

Beautiful

I’ve enjoyed other books by this author. This one was “eh”. The story just kind of dragged on, in my opinion. Most of the narration was excellent. The creepy voice didn’t work so well, at least for me. The story wasn’t riveting. Maybe I’m wrong.

Overall was expecting more

I was very excited to read this book because I loved the wrath and the dawn. But this book was definitely a bit disappointing. I was hoping for a love story but nothing even happened between the 2 main characters for almost the entire book.

decent story, hard to listen to

The majority of the narrative was fine, but the Shiver chapters were hard to listen to

a dark goddess and a beautiful devil

beautifully written with characters that are absolutely enthralling! loved every moment of this book, reminded me of why i love the vampire genre so much. definitely would recommend for a read, a listen, everything!

Performance was icky at times

The performance at certain chapters of the book (the demon chapters) was odd and honestly too dramatized. The story is good but those chapters personally give me the ick.

Twisty plot

A compelling tale. Good characters, world building. Good narrator. Ahdieh is an excellent plot creator.

Powerful performance

The Beautiful brought together some of my favorite reading aspects old New Orleans, vampires, romance, mystery, and action. While the storyline alone is entertaining and the descriptions vivid, some of the romantic aspects aren't as believable.

However, the audible performance by Lauren Ezzo is phenomenal and brought the story to an entirely new level. Her voice performance is so emotional and powerful that she fully brings you into the heat of New Orleans, the horror of murder scenes, and the heart crushing emotions of romance.

I would recommend this book, especially the audiobook version.

Decent October Read

Overall, really enjoyed this book. I read it in like two days xD. It's a strong start to a duology and I'm hopeful that the second book will live up to all the build up of the first. I'm reserving judgment on the overall story until The Damned comes out, but I have to say, the book held my interest the whole way through and I honestly had no idea how close I was to being done because I got so caught up in the story. The mythology wasn't /really/ explored as much as I would have liked, but maybe the next one with delve a little deeper. There were a couple of reveals I was actually a little surprised by, and I really loved the whole atmosphere of the book, creepy and spooky combined with 1800's New Orleans is always a winner.
All in all, it's a pretty solid October read.

That Voice

I enjoyed the story, I can’t wait to read the sequel. I just can’t understand for the life of me why the narrator decided to do that scratchy throat thing with her voice, I cringed every time. It was like scratching the blackboard.