Beautiful Chaos (Beautiful Creatures #3)

When I think about Beautiful Chaos the one phrase that appears before my eyes in crazy, weird font is: bloody-freaking predictable, which doesn’t necessarily mean it was a bad book…because it really wasn’t. I have realized that the one thing I can count on in regards to this series is that the title will always fit the content of the piece. I rather enjoy that element very much as it’s something that not many authors can get right. Beautiful Chaos further proves this point as the consequences from the previous installment begin to manifest terribly in this novel. Everything is literally going to heck as one chaotic thing after another begins to occur. The storytelling is still from the first-person perspective of our male protagonist, Ethan Wate, and the atmosphere is bleak and filled with a variety of seasoned tension. One of things that this uncomfortable feeling of dread does is that it makes you feel really anxious about what’s going to unfold. I don’t know about you, but when the world feels like it’s going to end, I think a little anxiety and fear is totally called for. Garcia and Stohl do their job rather well in that regard, however… The main plot point of The Caster Chronicles volume three revolves around the revelation and sacrifice of someone (or something) huge; whatever it is, it’s definitely one that is one of a kind. Garcia and Stohl failed at maintaining an air of mystery as to the identity of said fate-deciding tool. The book is written so that the pacing is slow. It isn’t until about 300 pages into the book that you can feel things starting to pick up. This increase gave me an anticipatory awareness that whatever was about to happen would be pretty darn big and decisive. Based on how this book is written, it felt to me as if the authors wanted to keep this secret until the last fifteen to ten percent of the story so that it could become a huge reveal for the ending, which was a badly written cliffhanger, mind you. Instead of dancing with the element of surprise, they slapped you in the face with uncreative facets of foreshadowing. So this so-called fantastically amazing announcement felt horribly anti-climactic. Because of this thing that needs to happen, one of my favorite characters behaves a little out of character. When stuff hits the fan, you never recognize how far you’re willing to go for someone until you’re already standing face to face with it. I enjoyed the fact this a certain sassy, prized-pie-contest-winning lady acted so unlike her persona. It made her feel decidedly human and me feel empathetic to her plight. Yet, I didn’t approve of her out-of-character behavior prior to this, which is the vast majority of the novel. Taking my frustrated subjective ramblings out of the equation, Beautiful Chaos is not a terrible addition to the series. It’s much needed as it ties up a lot of loose ends created in the second book. The tale is actually pretty interesting when you realize that these are all a bunch of kids facing some really tough and impossible situations. When you see the emotional and mental effect of these events taking their toll, then it becomes realistic, adding quite a bit of sentimental depth. You see this in character development as well as character atavism with the cast and how these changes are affecting the happenings of the situation. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in seeing how these personality changes will come into play in the last book. Overall, Beautiful Chaos was an interesting read, even if I did figure out the ending about fifteen pages into the book. The writing isn’t bad by all means, just not nearly as good as the first two. The story is far from finished, but the whole picture is falling into place decently. Number three gets three rips outta five.

Ethan Wate\’s life is never going to be normal. He and Lena return home to find things are stranger in Gatlin than when they left. Apparently Lena broke things a bit when she refused to choose a side and now everything has gone pear-shaped. And even worse, Ethan is being haunted both in dreams and in real life and he\’s slowly losing himself. The gang needs to get things together and quick because the wheel of fate is going to crush them all if they don\’t make things right. I\’m at a bit of a loss for what to say here. We get the same cast that we had in the previous novels, with more of John Breed and Olivia. They are on a journey to set the order of things straight again since Lena messed them up when she \”skipped\” her moon. I still love Ethan and Lena and their relationship, but it\’s far from perfect and that shows here more than ever. Ethan spent much of the last book with Olivia because Lena ran off with John and now he isn\’t allowed to see her because it upsets Lena. So we have this sorta-not-really love triangle thing happening that irritated me to no end. But Lena has no qualms talked to John Breed even though it\’s the exact same situation as Ethan and Liv. Which pissed me off. Then the predictable thing happens. Then there is the whole Link and Ridley situation in general. Rid is human now and Link is quarter incubus, so you\’d think the majority of the problems are solved, right? Rid can be good and Link can be her almost human boyfriend and they ride off into the proverbial sunset, yeah? Or not…… Is that too much to ask? To have Link and Ridley finally get their crap together. Or rather, to have Ridley finally get her crap together? This was a big forshadowing moment in my lifetime that I missed because from this point on, my opinion of Ridley just sinks lower and lower. That\’s a depressing thing because I really liked her in Beautiful Creatures, despite the fact that she was a quasi-villain and she redeems herself a tad in Beautiful Redemption…but then she falls again and I just want to punch her in the freaking face. Besides my obvious hangups about characters, this novel has one big issues, the huge motherf-ing cliffhanger. This books ends in quite possibly the worst cliffhanger I have ever read. Now, I know what you are all thinking: But Tabitha, don\’t you already have a copy of the next book? Isn\’t the audiobook queued up just waiting on this to end? Yes, it is, but it\’s the darn principle. I know a lot of people read these books as soon as they were released and I cannot imagine having to wait for a year or more to find out what happens next. This is not freaking necessary. It\’s infuriating. I\’ve been letting cliffhangers slide lately, but this was over the line. Despite my anger and my issues, this was still a highly enjoyable installment of the Caster Chronicles. You get a bit of mystery and a bit of action and a lot of Ethan/Lena romance. You get more of that swoon-worhty southern charm that is Ethan Wate. Just be warned that you\’ll want to have the next novel close on hand because the ending leaves a lot to be desired.

Throughout the series I’m finding myself wanting to keep reading to find out what happens next despite the series being a little frustrating at times & not as good as I thought. I will definitely be reading the next book (the last book) in the series but I don’t think I will be reading any of the spin offs. The reason for my 3 ⭐️ is because I was really disappointed with the ending and you have got to read the last book to understand / find out what happened. At the end of the first two books there was a lot of drama, everyones lives were either intertwining or crashing together. There was a real sense of foreboding & excitement, but with this one, it was totally missing. Yes Ethan dies but it’s nowhere near as dramatic, gripping or exciting (you don’t even know he’s dead until it’s clarified in the first chapter of the next book… my kindle version gave me the first two chapters of the next book). On the flip side it does make it a good ‘cliffhanger’ but it has always been the last 20-40% of the first two books that’s made like the series and want to keep reading and if ‘Chaos’ was the first or second book I wouldn’t have bothered with the rest of the series. There are also lots of discrepancies as with the first two, I think this could be attributed to there being two authors. Again, as with the first two books I had a few ‘of course there is’, seriously’ and ‘how very convenient’ moments for example: if Ethan’s soul was split in two at the end of first book, why did we only learn about it in the third book and not the second??! Surely it would have caused problems in the second as well?? I can’t help but think the authors didn’t know what to write about for this one or they thought it would make the other books too long to cover it but it would have been better over a disappointing book and would have made a better trilogy. Happy reading ?

I absolutely love this series and will be sad when I read the next book. Thankfully there\’s the spin off series so at least I\’ll get to spend a little more time in this world. The writing is brilliant, if a little repetitive and long winded at times. The characters are written so you care what happens, be it if they\’re good or bad and there is a lot of little twists and turns that you really don\’t expect which is one my favourite things about these books. They are a definite must read if you like fantasy worlds.

I read this soooo fast! Think I missed half of what was going on because I was so keen to get to the conclusion, I needed it to be fixed! Cant say much without ruining conclusion of beautiful darkness, but this was great! Again, totally different, its amazing that the writers have almost created a different world for each book. You are practically jumping up and down in your seat to hurry things along and see what happens. Just enough bittersweet to pull you in without the heaviness of beautiful darkness. Just exciting! If any of you are reading reviews after seeing the movie, PLEASE read the books! I loved the actors in the movie, but they messed up the storyline royally, I nearly walked out I was so mad! The books are soooo much better!

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