Beautiful Darkness

Fall under the spell of the Beautiful Darkness, the sequel to the instant NYT bestselling gothic fantasy, Beautiful Creatures!
There were no surprises in Gatlin County. At least, that's what I thought. Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin as a place where nothing ever changed. Then mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes revealed a secret world of curses and Supernaturals with terrifying abilities. Lena showed him a Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen. Sometimes life-ending.
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.

Love This Story!

..and I'm confident you will, also, particularly if you do read in this genre. This second installment of the Beautiful Creatures saga contains some interesting twists and turns. It is true that at some points, the story take it's time to develop but I think that is part of the story..keeping "true to it's nature", if you will. The same can be said for the tension between the characters, and some dialogue that you find yourself wishing would or would not be exchanged between them. If you become invested enough that you get "mad" a character for what she (or he) is not doing or saying, (as I did) then the author(s) have done their job! It would not be the same story if things were "easier", or things were said differently. I find Kevin T. Collins' narrative performance pretty much impeccable. He really makes Ethan real. He does this so well that the character of Ethan himself really becomes the driving force of the story, and not just because it is, in fact, relayed in first person from his perspective. His genuineness and personality really come through. You feel like you are in his head and experiencing these events from the inside out. Also, I liked the song and the sound effects and did not find them to be too much. Highly recommend!

Just ok

Any additional comments?

This one was just okay. I kind of got a bit tired of Lena's constant whining. Waa Waambulance! She's so moody and just got on my last nerve!

So conflicted

If you aren't looking for a book that requires a great amount of thinking or any background knowledge in the genre of fantasy, this is a good book to get. It's nice an long, if that's what you're looking for and all unknown information is spoon-fed to you all the way through the book. It's got your typical Romeo and Juliet-esque love story, and you can't help but root for them. There is not a lot of ambiguity is characters' good/evil alignments, except for a couple of characters, because that's really the basis of the plot.

All in all, I eat up this type of story, but that doesn't keep me from getting frustrated. I thought the voice acting was great. The southern accent annoyed me, but that has more to do with the book's setting. The plot is great. It's a new spin on something a little overdone. But I did get frustrated with the two main characters, because at times they seemed so thick-headed. I would have something figured out long before either of them did, and I wanted to yell at them for being dense. I didn't feel like the male protagonist was *totally* realistic. As I was Ethan's age about 8 years ago, I don't recall being that emotionally intelligent as a 16-year-old, so that is was stood out to me the most, as far as flaws go. Like I said, overall I liked the book. The characters weren't under or overdeveloped for the span of time it took to listen to the book. But I felt like the end was a big middle finger, and a ploy to make me buy the next book (which I did).

The song 16 Moons throughout the book is what really made the audiobook for me. It was a great touch, and it made my hair stand on end.

Wonderfully detailed

I loved it, the narration was wonderful and the story was very detailed. Can wait to read more.

Excellent and very entertaining

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, and I have. It's suspenseful and unexpected.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Darkness?

Link's being bitten and becoming an Incubus/?

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes.Beautiful Creatures--Excellent.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No