Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

I'd been interested in reading this series for a while, since I saw that it was a movie. I wasn't too sure what I expected when I decided to read this and I'm still not sure what I think of it. I liked how Ethan was the main character instead of it being Lena because I've never really read a book like this where the main character was male. But I don't know what to say about it - like it was a different type of book that I would usually read - yes it's a YA novel but it was something a bit different than that.. he was dreaming of this girl for months, feeling that he was going to keep losing her, and it was a girl he'd never even met and he didn't understand why he was dreaming of her himself. But it turns out she was dreaming of him too, having the exact same dreams that he was and she didn't know who he was. They finally meet when she joins the school and he is instantly drawn to her - but she's not your typical girly girl and the girls of the school take an instant dislike to her. So it's basically about something that is going to happen on Lena's 16th birthday, she will be chosen whether she will be good or evil, she doesn't get a choice in the matter.. and Ethan is convinced they can find a way to change it and that she won't have to go evil or what not. A lot of the story is surrounded around a locket that the pair of them find and when they touch it, it sends them back into the past at two of their relatives who are drawn to each other like they are - and the girl is destined for the same future as Lena is also.

It turns out that Lena's mother is trying to kill her, or so she has been told and it goes to a graveyard where she meets her mother for the first time - as she is told that she was killed when she was younger in order to protect her. But then all of a sudden she doesn't have to have her future chosen for her now until she is seventeen.
It starts off too slow for my liking, like it just dwindles and doesn't really get to the point of the main story until quite far into the story and it feels like it's just going to keep dragging on forever. I mean its a gripping story when it finally gets into it but it just took too long for me, it just felt like it wasn't going anywhere for ages and that it just kept building it up into something that was going to be so good but turned out that it wasn't as impressing as what you would think it would be, it just ends and it isn't as impressing of an ending as I thought it would be. It's the first book in the series, so I'm not too sure whether I am going to read the rest of the series as I wasn't overly impressed with this book, and I have heard rumours that the 2nd book isn't too good either so it's kind of putting me off reading it. But I don't know, I will see. I can understand why this is such a good series in other people's eyes - but in mine, eh, not impressed.
I've got the film off a friend that I need to watch but once I'd seen the trailer I'm not too sure if the film will be any better, I will keep you all updated in case you want to know.

So I rate this a 2.5 stars out of 5.

UK Book Cover.