Beautiful Darkness (Book 2): 2/4 (Beautiful Creatures)

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One night after these events, Lena sneaks into Ethan's bedroom wearing one of his oversized t-shirts that ends at her middle upper thigh and shorts underneath and crawls into his bed next to him. After lying together, she begs tearfully for forgiveness for her actions and Ethan does without hesitation (proving how much he truly loves her) and they make up kissing passionately before falling asleep together. Soon after they reconcile, Link sneaks through Ethan's window and interrupts them. He tells them that while the fighting was going on he was bitten by John, who is revealed to be a hybrid; half Caster and half Incubus. After Lena confirms it, Link realizes he is now turning into an Incubus. Beautiful Darkness is a young-adult fantasy novel written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The second novel in the Caster Chronicles, it was published by Little, Brown on October 12, 2010. In the last chapter of the book, the "after" part of it, Ridley, who has completely lost her Siren powers and is now a mortal, is shown in her room. Ridley takes the Arc-light out of its hiding place and looks at it, then counts down from three and something is "decided". There were too many things out there to be afraid of, too many to fight. It was a wonder anyone in Gatlin slept at all."

JOHN BREED: I won't tell you what exactly he was but he's different. And my mind had this commotion right now thinking if he is in good side or not. Vehlmann might be riffing on fairy stories, but he doesn’t force his narrative to be bound by them. He prefers their preciousness remain as character traits, often leading to their undoing, but sometimes also highlighting their nobility. With no Grimm Brother or Hans Christian Anderson at the helm of the fairy people’s fates, there is no larger morality to dole out appropriate punishments for those with transgressive behavior. Some meet their end through their own evil nature, others because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good pixies are victimized, as are bad pixies, and Vehlmann paints a seemingly magical universe with nothing at its core.

Beautiful Darkness is the sequel to the Caster Saga. The story begins with the tragic death of Macon Ravenwood, Lena's beloved uncle. Through telepathic communication, Lena tells Ethan she wants to skip the funeral. Even though I did like reading this, I noticed the length of it a little too much. With the first one I was so enamored with the story I didn't notice it almost at all. I'm a little peeved that there are four books in the series because I believe everything could be solved in three, but I really enjoy Garcia's and Stohl's style and will read all of them. The southern setting always captures me, and doesn't let me out of its grasp. Unfortunately Lena was hard for me to swallow this time around. I literally wanted to take a frying pan and bang her head, but then I would be obliterated since she is oh so powerful. But then as the book progresses I did understand her better and where she was coming from. Only then I could mentally put away the cast iron skillet. I liked the change of Ethan being angry. We had to see that he had some gumption and a limit of what he could put up with. I also thought it was great that we got to see more interaction between Link and Ethan, and learn how their friendship worked. More secrets are brought to light in this one, and we are getting more pieces to see how the puzzle will be solved.

I don’t wish to be too contrarian because it’s likely that these readers didn’t understand the book any better than I did.[3] Making too much of something, going for the facile interpretation—it’s an easy trap to fall into when one feels as though they have to say something wise, intelligent, or insightful about a book. I feel that pressure a lot. And I’ve fudged things before as well. So it’s not like I’m blameless. I think I just wished for better criticism because I love this book and want to understand it. The characters are what really shine in these books though. Ethan has always been a favourite male narrator of mine. His resourcefulness and empathetic nature have always appealed to me. His love for Lena is both tragic and beautiful. These two are fundamentally different people - he's human and she is, well... not. It causes some ripples in their relationship throughout the entire series. That they keep trying to be together, despite the odds, is what makes these books work. The doomed nature of their relationship is gorgeous. And as her seventeenth birthday approaches Lena and Ethan face even greater danger. A Caster and a Mortal can never truly be together. As interesting as Jolies Ténèbres is artistically in this context, for me the story and ideas behind it are what make Jolies Ténèbres great. It's tempting to concentrate only on the fact that these characters are living in and around the cadaver of a young girl, and there is an off-handedness to some of the macabre elements:

What can you say about a work you can’t be sure you understood, a communication garbled in translation? Would it be fair to judge such a thing at all? If I see a movie but am mystified as to what happened in it or what it meant, it’s hardly fair for me to say either that it was great or horrible. I might as well talk about how I felt about the latest Takeshi Miyazawa piece despite the fact that my cataracts[1] make actually seeing the work with any clarity impossible. If I don’t understand the thing, I am entirely incapable of judging its value, its ability to succeed at what it attempts to accomplish. I really liked ‘Beautiful Creatures’ for a number of reasons as I mentioned above, but none of these things were present in this sequel – the mythos remains interesting and well crafted but it’s so clumsily put into the story with giant chunks of show-don’t-tell that it adds yet more speed-bumps to a story that desperately needs an energy boost. Ethan’s narration remains likeable enough but there are more points in this story where he doesn’t feel authentically male than in the previous story. Love stories may not be my favourite element in paranormal YA these days but it’s still important to make me care about the romantic leads and I just didn’t care about Lena in this story. Forget the fact that she’s barely in half of it; when she is there her actions didn’t do much to make me sympathise with her. In the previous book I understood her emotions and while I empathise to an extent here, her moments of ignorance, cruelty and just plain old stupidity drove me nuts. Stupidity should not drive the plot. This also left me wondering why the hell Ethan was so obsessively in love with Lena, especially since there were so many more interesting things about Ethan I wanted to know about, such as the return of his dad into his life after the events of the previous story. There were some small moments between Ethan and his dad where I really wanted to read more instead of that dreaded yet inevitable trope of the YA genre – the love triangle. Or rather a love square if I must be precise. Over the next few weeks, Ethan convinces Lena to leave Ravenwood Manor only a couple of times. On one occasion, when Ethan complains about Lena's bedroom ceiling, Lena convinces Ethan to climb up to the top of the water tower, a place they'd been before. Although Ethan is wary, Lena is excited and full of life again. At the top of the water tower, Ethan presents Lena with a gift: a new sharpie. Lena is delighted, and uses it to draw an outline of a love-heart on the wall of the water tower. Within the heart she writes something. Ethan is happy, thinking that she is writing their names in the heart, but is disappointed when he sees that she has written a number instead. Ethan realizes that Lena is already counting down to her next birthday. This reason it gets a two instead of a one is because there were a few small things that I liked or that surprised me.

When they arrive at the Lunae Libri, Ethan hears a girl laughing. It sounds familiar, and he believes and hopes that it is Lena. He follows the laughter and ends up in a study in the Tunnels. Both Ethan and Link are surprised to find Liv there with Marian. In the shouting that follows, Ethan feels angry, thinking why couldn't someone in his life not have a hidden life. Liv reveals that she is a Keeper-in-training, and is staying with Marian and working in the Lunae Libri with her. Marian then asks Ethan how he found them. Ethan admits that he heard someone laughing happily, and followed the sound, to which Liv blushes. Ethan then realizes that the study is Macon's. Marian tells him that his mother must have been the one laughing, and that she led him to this place and that he and Marian were meant to have this conversation. Ethan mentions that he can Kelt with Lena, something that Liv says he shouldn't be able to do, since he is a Mortal. Marian says that Ethan may not be a regular Mortal. She searches for a certain book, which Link accidentally finds, and tells Ethan that he may be a Wayward, a Mortal sent to guide Casters who have a great purpose and destiny to fulfill. A Wayward is one who finds those who are lost. Marian says that Ethan may be bound to Lena or Macon. Ethan becomes certain he is bound to Lena. Finally, he tells Marian the real reason he and Link are in the Tunnels-- Lena, John and Ridley are down there, and he wants to find Lena. Marian warns them of the dangers of the Tunnels, and becomes even more unhappy when Liv states her intention of going with Ethan and Link. She warns Liv not to get involved, but Liv says that Ethan needs her, and goes with them anyway. Also available in the Beautiful Creatures series: Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption. After not being claimed for darkness like she feared, you would expect Lena to be happy to be able to stay with Ethan. However her guilt from her Uncle's death is threatening to consume her and causes Lena to pull further and further away from Ethan. When Ethan starts having mysterious visions again, this time without Lena, he knows she is in trouble, but he just isn't sure what the danger really is. When Lena really starts to take a turn for the worst, Ethan may just be the only person who can save her from herself, but what happens when she doesn't want to be saved? Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.Kerascoët’s and Fabien Vehlmann’s unsettling and gorgeous anti-fairy tale is a searing condemnation of our vast capacity for evil writ tiny. Join princess Aurora and her friends as they journey to civilization’s heart of darkness in a bleak allegory about surviving the human experience. The sweet faces and bright leaves of Kerascoët’s delicate watercolors serve to highlight the evil that dwells beneath Vehlmann’s story as pettiness, greed, and jealousy take over. Beautiful Darkness is a harrowing look behind the routine politeness and meaningless kindness of civilized society. In a new (rebooted) weekly feature, we hope to spotlight graphic novels more often. This week, we take a look at Drawn and Quarterly’s “Beautiful Darkness,” by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet. but revolting in that way that totally rejuvenates me because i love knowing i can still be horrified.