Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles, #2), by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

 
Release Date: October 12th, 2010
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages:503
Overall: 4,5 Monkeys
Source:Web
Interest: Series

Summary from Goodreads:

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. 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.
My Opinion:

Another great book by Kami and Margie! I loved it! 

From the beginning there's action and suspense, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout it.

One of the reasons I love this book so much is that it's told from a boy's POV, something very unusual in YA. 

Macon died on Lena's Sixteenth Birthday, or Moon, and Ethan knows how she must be feeling. So he's there for her. Or he tries to be. Because Lena keeps pushing him away, but that's only natural, because she's hurting. She feels it was her fault he died. 

Ethan gives her space and tries to talk to her, but Lena doesn't want him around. 

And oh, oh, Ridley, Lena's Siren cousin, is back. But she's not alone. There's a boy with her, and Ethan has a really bad feeling about him.

He's right, of course. Ridley and Vampire Boy (as Link calls him) convince Lena that she has to leave everything behind, and go someplace where she can't hurt anyone anymore. 

I felt so sad everytime Ethan tried to reach out for her, and she just pushed him away. She really wanted him gone, and it seemed as though John, aka Vampire Boy, was there to fill in Ethan's shoes if Lena so wanted. Ethan has got to be one of the strongest characters I've ever read about. Whatever challenge he was faced with, he did everything he could to overcome it, all to be with the one he loves. And there were those moments when he was feeling broken and miserable, and it made him all the more real. Boys cry too. 

Lena didn't have to Claim herself on her Sixteenth Moon, but she'll have to make a choice now, a choice that could affect the Order of Things forever. 

Link and Ridley are two characters I love in this series, even though Ridley can be a bit bitchy sometimes. Well, practically all the time. Link was still hung up on her, but she didn't have the same effect on him as before, and he was able to make his own choices. We see a little change in Ridley, too. Could she have the ability to care about someone? Really care about them? 

Also, there's a new character: Olivia, or Liv, a British exchange student that'll be working with Marian and who'll be of great help when Ethan and Link will need her. 
I didn't like her getting too attached to Ethan, he belongs to Lena! But she's not half bad. She was very interesting to read about, with her crazy temper and inventions.

And there's an OMG WTH?! revelation that involves Macon and a special someone, that I can't wait to read more about. That made me teary eyed! 

At the end of the book, Ethan will need all the help he can get to get Lena back, whether she wants to or not. 
Who'll be there to help him? And against who is he fighting?

There were some things that left me hanging, like John's development, and they are the reasons I'm not giving this a 5 monkeys rating. But 4,5 is great too!

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There's a Q&A with Kami & Margie on Goodreads! If you've read either BC or both, you can ask the girls questions, and join in the discussions about the books.

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