Audiobook Review: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
October 12, 2010
Little, Brown, and Company
503 pages
Source: Personal Purchase

Goodreads Summary:

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

 
My Review:
 
For my review of Beautiful Creatures, go here.

Beautiful Darkness is the second book in the Caster Chronicles series. Beautiful Darkness picks up a few months after Beautiful Creatures leaves off. The consequences of the choices that Lena made during the battle at the end of BC are hitting her full force, her Uncle Macon's death in particular. She is blaming herself, pulling away from Ethan, and thinks she is going dark. Lena and Ethan have so much to deal with, but unfortunately they don't deal well with it together. Thus, the crazy ride of Beautiful Darkness begins.

As the title says, this book walks on the dark side, with Lena in particular. We get to glimpse the darker side of Lena as Ridley's influence persists. We also get to meet another dark and mysterious character, John Breed, who relates to Lena where Ethan can't. A lighter character is also introduced, Olivia (Liv), a Caster librarian in training, who befriends Ethan. Yes, as you can imagine, jealousy is added to the mix. 

I enjoyed watching Ethan's character develop in this one, growing out of Lena's shadow. Honestly, I wanted to knock Lena around a bit. She drove me crazy...a lot. They both had their own journeys to go through, both physically and emotionally. But the journey we go on with them is quite incredible, with surprises and revelations along the way. Luckily, they had great characters along with them for the ride. One of the great things about this series is the amazing secondary characters.

I will not divulge further into the plot for fear of revealing spoilers. But I will say that Garcia and Stohl continue to paint a great picture of the mortal and caster world they've created. I love that I can imagine it all as they describe it. Now, they can be a bit repetitive at times, but the picture is still great. The narrator of the audiobook continues to do a great job with the voices and accents, and I will continue to listen to this series on audio. Great series!

4.5 STARS

 

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