"Beautiful Creatures" by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

"Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything."-goodreads

I have to admit, I almost didn't read this book. There were several reasons involved in this: when it came out, it was during the time where every single book was about VAMPIRES. Read the description. The 'secret' could easily be vampires, right? Second; it's LONG. I LOVE long books, because as long as a book is good it can go on forever and I'll be happy about that. But, despite people saying good things about it I thought it was about vampires and I'd read enough of those.

Fast-Forward to 2 weeks ago at the library. I saw this book sitting on the shelf and read the description again. I recalled thinking it was about vampires, but realized it never said that, and a couple of my friends are really into this book and had recommended it to me. I decided I'd read it and if it was bad or about vampires or it was Twilight with a different cover, I wouldn't finish it.

I finally got around to picking it up and oh. my. god. It was so good! I loved how it was paranormal and a paranormal romance but it wasn't vampires. It wasn't poorly written- in fact, it was SUPER-written. It was 566 pages of AWESOME. It was a long book- but even after reading 566 pages of it I found myself not wanting it to end. Why? Read on.

First: Setting. This novel is paranormal and it's in the modern world, but it's set in the South in an area with constant Civil War reenactments and a lot of history. I think this is the first book that I've ever read that was a Contemporary/Paranormal/Historical/Romance all at the same time, without a lot of over-empowerment from any of those.

Characters. I loved Ethan. He seemed really cool. I haven't actually read that many books that I've enjoyed that are narrated by guys, and I definitely liked this one the best. I also just liked him as a character. Lena was really cool, obviously, and she was just unique all around.

Casters. The whole witch-type-of-thing-but-not-quite was pretty unique and I really liked it.

I'm not going to go on much more because I'll get overly gush-ish and I'll probably spoil everything for you, but all I can say is that if you're not afraid of large books (with equally large sequels, Beautiful Darkness is just as long), with cool writing, interesting characters, a great setting, and overall a book that I'm calling Contemporary/Paranormal/Historical/Romance, then I recommend picking up Beautiful Creatures.