Friday, December 14, 2012

Book Review: Beautiful Redemption

TITLE: Beautiful Redemption
Book 4 in the Caster Chronicles
AUTHOR: Kami Garcia and Margeret Stohl
PUBLISHED: October 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban fantasy, witches, southern, romance
PREMISE: Ethan tries his best to get back to the land of the living.
MY REVIEW: Resurrection stories are a tricky thing for me. Honestly I think the only ones that have actually worked for me so far are Buffy's in season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gandalf's in Lord of the Rings. So this book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Part of that was just that I was so sad to see this series go. I've been a fan of it for about three and a half years now after all.
But I will say for a conclusion, it works really well. Questions are answered. Surprises are to be had (not all good ;really bummed about Amma;) and I actually quite like the way the authors played on the afterlife. This was a satifying ending even if I felt parts were dragged out a bit.
Basically if you're a fan, I doubt you'll be disapointed. For those that don't know, the Beautiful Creatures movie comes out next year (February I believe). Not entirely sure if I'll see it in theatres, but I'll rent the dvd for sure. I'm just so iffy about what I've seen in the trailers. Ethan doesn't look at ALL like how I pictured and I'm sorry but where the hell is Link? Plus it looks like the humor in the series got dropped in favor of the more overdramatic parts which I don't think are the strong parts of this series. I'm also really concerned about the portrayal of Amma in what I've seen. Granted, Amma is a bit of a stereotype in the books but the authors try to give her depth and character. I didn't see any of that in what little we've been shown of Amma. Basically, it looks like they tried their best to appeal to the Twilight crowd. While I get that BC does fall into similar categories as Twilight (romance, teen fantasy) and thus will likely attract the same sort of readers, it's not the same thing as Twilight (personally I feel this series does the same idea but on a much better scale. It is basically what I wanted from Twilight but didn't get). I really wish we'd stop giving every teen fantasy the Twilight treatment and let them be their own thing. But I guess that's asking too much. Well, that's enough ranting. Basically this is a fabulous ending to a solid series that I'm really sorry is ending but apparently Kami has a new series coming out next year so it's not all bad.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans, those that have read the first three books, Mortal Instrument fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five tissues for Amma

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