***SPOILER ALERT***
Not even going to deny it - this review contains major spoilers. As always, if haven't read the book, and you don't want to know what happens til you do, save this review for later.
Beautiful Darkness is the second book in the Caster Chronicles series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The book starts where the first book left off, and only spans the course of a little over a month. During that month, Lena loses herself, then claims herself, Ethan meets a new girl who is training to be a keeper, Ridley loses her powers, and Uncle Macon comes back from the not-dead.
As you all know, I was kind of middle of the road as far as Beautiful Creatures went. I didn't totally love it, but it wasn't the worst book I've ever read. I wish I could say the same about Beautiful Darkness. I had some negative feelings about this book pretty early on. The magical aspect of the book was still intriguing, but other than that I had trouble finding a whole lot that I liked about this book.
I think it was good that the characters stayed true to who they were in the first book. That being said, there was no development in this book. Their was no growth, no maturity - nothing. Just characters that stayed the same.
The plot seemed feeble in this book - and a little predictable. From the beginning, it is easy to know that Lena is absolutely going to be claimed in this book. There is NO surprise in that area. The potential love triangle was also weak and uninteresting. There was no development in that area - Liv appeared, and Ethan seemed to be attracted to her, but then the story was just dropped and went nowhere.
While reading this book, I found myself asking so many questions, including:
*How, exactly, did Ridley lose her powers? What did Sarafine do to her?
*How on god's green earth did Macon trap HIMSELF in the Arclight, when Incubuses are not supposed to be able to do that?
*How and why was Sarafine able to bring up a claiming moon on Lena's 17th birthday?
Overall, friends, I found this book to be unsatisfying. It left to many questions unanswered and had to many plot holes for me to really care. I would give it 1.5 stars. Save your reading time for a different story.
