Beautiful Darkness

Reader: Meghan K
Age: 16
Title: Beautiful Darkness
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
Pub Date: 10/26/10
Galley: Yes
Recommend: No
Convince us to read the book: Beautiful Darkness is the sequel to Beautiful Creatures, a book so okay it was average. I liked Beautiful Creatures, but I remember being frustrated by how seriously the book took itself. The plot was ridiculously convoluted, and there were too many bland, cookie-cutter characters introduced at once with no characterization. The story itself and the writing were pretty good, but they were weighted down by overly flowery language and every single cliché available. The sequel suffers from the same problems, only more so.
Compelling Aspect of the Book: Beautiful Darkness suffers from uneven pacing and exposition dumps. Characters are introduced, forgotten about, and then become important ten chapters later. The normal human characters are dull and stereotyped, and the magical characters are flat. The authors seem to be striving for realism by putting in dozens of background characters who have no bearing on the plot, but this simply does not work in writing. Readers have been trained from birth to place importance on all named characters. There are no unnamed characters in this book. Everyone has a name and back story, but few of them are important. This book is too dense, it really needs someone to go in and take all of the extra stuff out.
Were you disappointed with the book at all: I felt like I should be taking notes when I was reading Beautiful Darkness. There's too much information and too many characters to process. The unimportant details are described lovingly, while important things are glossed over, then reintroduced with no warning. I read this book for the story, but I eventually gave up on trying to keep the characters and events separate in my head. Once I stopped thinking or applying 'logic' to the book, it became much more enjoyable.
Comments: This book takes itself waaaaay too seriously. Every third word is Capitalized, because it has some Great Significance in the Magic system of the Book. I can't take a book seriously when the main characters are A Wayward, a Keeper, a Siren, and a Mortal, all in search of the Great Barrier where their best friend, who is a Catalyst, has to Claim herself to Dark or Light. Also, this series has moved from "magic teenagers trying to get by in a close-minded small town" to "adventures in the underworld!" with no warning. I don't really like high-fantasy adventures, and this series is wandering dangerously in that direction. A good story is about normal people with fantastic problems, or about fantastic people with normal problems. This series was originally the former, and has warped into fantastic people with fantastic problems. I can't relate anymore, and am losing interest.
Cover: This series has had pretty good covers so far. Not spectacular, but they do set the scene nicely for the story.
Did you finish: Yes
Quality: 3Q Readable
Popularity: 3P Some teen appeal