Caragh Reviews - Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Published - 25th October 2012
Publisher - Penguin
Format - Paperback
Synopsis - Is death the end . . . or only the beginning? Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin. But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice. Now Ethan must find a way to return to Lena - and Gatlin - as she vows to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if it means trusting old enemies or risking their loved ones' lives. Can Ethan and Lena rewrite their fate and their spellbinding love story in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series?

The end is finally here. The best part of a series? Knowing that the last page just means the start of a new book and a new plot. The worst part of a series? Spending so many other pages with a world and it's characters that when the last page really is the last page, it hurts. I absolutely hate finishing a series of books. It's part of the reason that I endevour to read more standalones as time goes on because i'm just SO bad at it. I have been putting off this book for weeks now because I couldn't bear to end it all which is crazy! It just prolongs the pain. I'm so emotionally challenged when finishing a series, that even if I didn't LIKE the series.. it still kinda hurts. What's with that? Anyway. I did it. I finished the Caster Chronicles and here is what I think.

The pain. Oh the pain. I just cannot deal with the fact that the ending of Beautiful Redemption is really the end. WHAT THE HELL? You can't just go and make me so deliriously happy and then stamp, crush and shatter my heart into a million little pieces with the next sentence. No. Just no.

I'll try and be a little more eloquent with this review, but I don't promise anything.
I knew that Beautiful Redemption was going to be a difficult read giving the events of the previous book but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought. It was well explained and thought out and I didn't feel like I was being given a ridiculous story as to how and why things were as they were (hard with no spoilers - sorry!) even though it kind of was. Some new characters were introduced which was great as it kept the whole thing fresh even though we're 4 books in now. It felt a little like book 2 in the fact there was some kind of journey to take and something worth fighting for.

I really liked how to book was split into sections and finally getting to "hear" Lena's voice and not just Ethan's. It really worked, particularly as Ethan's POV would have really slowed down the story and definitely run the risk of boredom so it was nice to get that out of the way by having some action from a different POV.

Beautiful Redemption is a hard book to review and it's even harder to explain why. Had this book been earlier on in the series, I don't think I would have honestly enjoyed it. It felt arduous and "out there" but at the same time, because it was the final book and i'd spent a long time with these characters I loved it regardless of the events. It's hard to separate how I thought about this book specifically as opposed to the series as a whole. There are definitely a lot of things that I don't feel satisfied with - like the ending for one [see previous rant] but it's easy to gloss over them when I think about the enjoyment of the whole series. So with that in mind, i'm ending the review without really saying much about what the book was like. Sorry about that! But as a series, I definitely enjoyed the Caster Chronicles.

Caragh Reviews - Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Published - 18th October 2011
Publisher - Penguin
Format - Paperback
Synopsis - Their love has just begun. Now the end of days is coming . . .Ethan Wate is in love with a Caster girl. When he looks at Lena, it's like there's no one else in the world. But Ethan is mortal, and on her seventeenth birthday Lena made a choice that changed everything. The girl Ethan loves has broken the world with the supernatural powers she is struggling to control . . .Now, if they are to fix the chaos Lena has caused, one of them must make a terrible sacrifice. Sometimes there isn't just one answer. Sometimes there's no going back. And this time there won't be a happy ending.

Beautiful Creatures review here
Beautiful Darkness review here

Beautiful Chaos is the 3rd book in the Caster Chronicles series. Unlike the previous two, it started a little slow and it took me a while to really get into the flow of the story. The small town of Gatlin is overrun with lubbers and the ground is dying out from lack of rain and nutrients. Beautiful Chaos is full of secrets and mysteries, much like the other books, but this time it's Amma who is holding all of the cards which is strange for both Ethan and me as a reader. The characters in the Caster Chronicles are so relate-able and loveable that it is unnerving to suddenly stop trusting people who have become your own 'family'.

It was really nice to see more of Liv. She was intriguing and different in Beautiful Darkness and i'm glad that she appeared once more. Of course I still love Link and Ridley and after the events of the previous books their relationship has taken a turn that is going to take some serious figuring out! Because initially it took me a long time to get into the book, I was concerned that the story was deflating a little and that Beautiful Chaos would be disappointing but fortunately at around the halfway point, it definitely picked up as the action really started kicking in. 

There was a real sense of danger for the characters and it was difficult to know who to trust. As the synopsis suggests, Beautiful Chaos is the darkest book of the series so far which was GREAT and really kept me reading when sometimes the plot fell a little stagnant. I'm a little reluctant to start reading the next and final book as they've been such great reads and so different from anything else!