Beautiful Creatures... 
 *sigh* I read so many negative reviews that I geared myself up to hating the book. Which was my bad, I really shouldn't let reviews affect how I feel. Though I must admit it wasn't the description of the book that made me read this... It was the movie preview which looked so damn haunting and good I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and read the novel. 
 I enjoyed this book. I found in entertaining, so unlike most of my reviews I am going to start off with what I liked first. 
 1)	The characters accept Lena. The authors wrote brilliant characters. They all had depth and back story, personality, quirks, their own style and designs. Many quirky little juicy tidbits that made me truly care about what happened to them. 
 2)	The magic- it was rather unique how they wrote about Casters, and gave each of their powers and abilities special names. The authors described the magic in a new and fun way that I enjoyed, giving the magic its own life, in a way 
 3)	The world building and descriptions- Gatlin was given a very realistic description and I found myself really picturing life in this close minded small town with the churches, everyone loving the civil war, DAR and eccentric old ladies 
 4)	The writing- I found the writing, while not the BEST ever, to be good, good enough that I read and read and read and didn't want to put it down. 
 5)	The story line- the concept was a decent one, I had issues, which I will get into later) but for the most part I was intrigued buy the thought that on her 16th birthday Lena would be Claimed for the Light or the Dark and that Ethan was trying to find a way to save her... Yeah I said ETHAN, not LENA. 
 6)	The Caster Library- I want more info on Marian and Ethan's mom, but the library ROCKS 
 Okay so the not so good stuff... Warning: There is A LOT but I still thought the good aspects outweighed the crap 
 1)	First person Ethan- two women should probably NOT write first person a boy. He sounded more like what teenage girls WANT boys to actually be like, not what a real boy would be like 
 2)	Lena- She was like, the MAIN character aside from Ethan and I seriously just don't like her much. She is way too angsty, poor pity me, I am so going dark blah blah blah... Look bitch, if you maybe are going to lose yourself and become a Dark Caster why are you bitching, whining and moaning about it? Go, I don't know LIVE YOUR DAMN LIFE Have a good time! Live to the fullest while you can! 
 3)	The storyline- Eh, there were some things I didn't care for. First off I didn't need pages upon pages about the Civil War reenactment and for every few chapters Ethan to drone on about why the Civil War was important to Galtin, yeah dude, I got it the first dozen times. Also Lena spends all her time lamenting that she is going to go dark, but all I saw was Ethan trying to find a way around it, Ethan loving her and not letting go, Ethan struggling to keep her sane and good... And what did he get for it? A YA trope where Lena dumps him "for his own good..." Which is just selfish bitch for : I can't handle being in a relationship right now. Though they get back together like a day or two later 
 4)	The Claiming- so in Lena's family Casters are not normal, when they turn 16 they are Claimed for the Light or Dark and it doesn't matter what they want, they have no damn choice. So naturally the Dark Casters are treated like shit? Does this sound like a self fulfilling prophecy to anyone else? Of course I am going to be an evil person if when my eyes turn yellow you all treat me like I am an evil person. This made some of the climax and plot twists feel just a little bit forced. 
 The ending was not bad, though a character I liked died, while characters that sucked did not. I can only hope that the sequel lives up to this book. I enjoyed this book I really did, did it have the insta love, angsty teen drama that most ya novels have? Yeah, sure... But it also had a hell of a lot of other fun things as well... Read and enjoy.