Mundie Moms

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Book Review- Beautiful Creatures

By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Published by Little Brown
Official Release date Dec. 1, 2009
Source: UK ARC from a friend in the UK
5 stars

We've been dying to post our reviews of Beautiful Creatures for a couple months now. We're respecting the wishing of Little Brown and not posting any reviews until the official release date of Beautiful Creatures.

Here's what I can say and this is what I posted as my Amazon Review:
Beautiful Creatures is a haunting, fantasy filled love story that draws you in and keeps you in it's gothic filled setting until the very end. It will have you begging for more from these unforgettable characters. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

This is one of those rare books you read that stays with you and really leaves you needing more. We're really looking forward to talking more about Beautiful Creatures with Kami and Margaret next month when we chat with them.


Here's what some of our favorite YA Authors have said about Beautiful Creatures:


“A hauntingly delicious dark fantasy, a cast of fascinating characters, a rich gothic setting –this debut novel is one to watch.” - Cassandra Clare, New York Times bestselling author of The Mortal Instruments

“Gorgeously crafted, atmospheric, and original. I devoured it.” - Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Lovely

“A lush Southern gothic whose memorable, eccentric characters draw you into theircaptivating world.” - Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale

“Like a thick, hot Carolina summer, this story seeps into you until it’s all you can think about.” - Carrie Ryan, The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Review - Uglies by Scott Westerfeld


Published by Simon Pulse 8 February 2005
Order on Amazon here
Rating - 3 out of 5 Stars

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an 'Ugly' into a 'Pretty'. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen - but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn't sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest - the Rusty Ruins - where Uglies go to escape ' turning'. Tally won't be persuaded to join her, as this would involve sacrificing everything she's ever wanted for a lot of uncertainty. When she is taken in for questioning on her birthday, however, Tally gets sent to the Ruins anyway - against her will. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she could ever imagine: find her friend Shay and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. What she discovers in the Ruins reveals that there is nothing 'pretty' about the transformations...And the choice Tally makes will change her world forever.

Basically, Scott Westerfeld is like a living legend; he *almost* beats Chuck Bass on the awesome stakes. Plus, he’s married to Justine Larbalasteir who is also made of awesome. I loved the Midnighter’s series, which for those of you living under Rock is a YA series about five teenagers born on the stroke of midnight. That doesn’t sound so special right? But at midnight time freezes for them and reveals a dark and terrible hidden world. So, I have my armour on ready for the blows that are surely to come, because sadly, Uglies just didn’t float my boat as much as I wanted it to. I mean its dystopia, which is like my forte.

So, to kick off my review, check out that cover. I love this cover, but I dont think it captures the mood of the book really well. For one the girl is gorgeous, I would've liked to have seen an average girl on the cover. But the colors, mood and test are so beautiful. I would pick this book on its cover alone.

Tally is fifteen years old, and lives in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is Ugly until they turn sixteen. In this world, everyone has an operation on their sixteenth birthday, to make them pretty. Tally is sick and tired of being ugly and can’t wait until she turns sixteen. Tally’s best friend Peris is now a pretty and living in New Pretty Town and Tally’s still ugly, stuck in Uglyville. On a secret mission in New Pretty Town to see Peris, Tally meets Shay, another ugly waiting to become pretty.

The thing is Shay doesn’t want to be a pretty, where as its all Tally can think about. The brainwashing that everyone has to be pretty, it’s the only way everyone can survive as equals, has been etched into Tally’s brain. She can’t see past it, it’s all she’s wanted and she can’t comprehend why someone would want to stay ugly forever. Shay convinces Tally to sneak out to the restricted area, just past Uglyville, and confides that she meets a boy named David here, who is an ugly too, even though he’s older than sixteen.

Shay decides the operation is unnatural and leaves Uglyville before her transformation, heading to The Smoke, a place where everyone lives together, where being ugly doesn’t make you a freak. Tally refuses to go; she’s waited all her life to shed her ugly skin. As the day of her operation dawns, Tally is confronted by Special Circumstances, who want to know where Shay has gone and will stop at nothing to find out. Tally’s life takes a wicked turn, but will she eventually realise that it’s what’s inside your skin that counts?

Scott does a really fantastic job of making Tally’s struggles with her body image relatable to the readers. Everyone, whether they are natural beauties or just average, worries about their image. It’s normal to worry about how other people will perceive you and especially when you are a teenager, body image is something that can really affect your life. In this book, in a world where everyone is eventually pretty, how do they define what is beautiful? Also, I did think that if everyone was pretty, then maybe the shift would focus to inner beauty, but everyone in New Pretty Town is shallow.

The concept of the book is really interesting, but in a world where cosmetic surgery is so acceptable and accessible, a world where everyone is pretty is not really unrealistic. This is where I found myself not as immersed in the book as I would’ve liked. I love my dystopia novels to be really far-fetched, something that would never happen in my mundane existence. I am quite a strong person and I have always refused to conform to other peoples views about what they *think* people should look like or act, I don’t like uniformity, and I like having freedom to choose what I do. So, a book about most of the characters conforming to what they perceived to be perfect, didn’t reach out to me.

Tally for me was a perfect protagonist for this type of novel, a girl that no matter what facts were put in front of her, still stuck to her guns that being ugly was a sin, something to be ashamed of. Really, none of them, are ugly, they are normal girls and boys with flaws. And this was her downfall, she was shallow, and I know this was intended by Scott, I just found her very immature and annoying. I was waiting for her to realise that not everything is about image, and she didn’t. I wanted her to develop a healthy view about body image, which never came. So sadly, *sobs* this book just wasn’t for me, but for those of you who love reading about societies being manipulated for the “good” of the people, you will love this book. Regardless, I am still a massive Scott fan girl and can’t wait to read Leviathan.

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