#77 The Beautiful

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh 

The Beautiful in set in the 1870's in New Orleans, i should preface this by saying ive never read any Anne Rice so i had zero expectations going into this, i just wanted it to be better than the shit show that was Twilight and thankfully it was. The book follows our main protagonist Celine who has fled Paris after something happens to her and moves to New Orleans for a fresh start and a new life. Celine moves into a convent with a group of other girls, their main aim is to find a husband and move out of the nunnery.

When Celine meets the mysterious Odette who asks her to make a dress for an upcoming masquerade party Celine then becomes involved with the wrong crowd known as 'The Court of Lions' and within the opening few chapters a body is found in the restaurant that they frequent and thus the story begins. The killings dont stop and people around Celine begin to die, she begins to become suspicious that she may be in danger. Through The Court of Lions Celine meets Sebastian, a mysterious handsome figure who in true YA tropey fashion she falls head over heels for even though she shouldnt because hes 'bad news'.

I was a bit worried about the hype surrounding this book. Renee Ahdieh is highly loved within the book community and this is the first book of hers i have read. The writing is very atmospheric and Gothic, two things i really appreciated. I was hoping this book would be a fresh start for vampire fiction but alas my main problem with all YA fantasy at the minute occurred, there was too much focus on the sodding romance. Well this book had a fantastic start, i thought the writing was stunning and the first half had me completely enthralled but then it just sort of veered off. I feel bad saying this but there wasnt enough vampires for me and i dont think i will bother with the sequel. There was a lot of aspects i enjoyed, mainly the writing. I didnt care for the characters much, i thought they were a bit unrealistic and not very true to the time period. There wasnt enough information about The Court of Lions and i thought that could have been explored a bit more. I dont really care for hate to love tropes in YA and this felt a bit too insta-lovey for me and that was the main reason i couldnt give this more than 3 stars. I usually love historical books but i didnt think this was very true to the time which was annoying to me.

All in all this wasnt for me really. Yet another YA fantasy 2019 release book that i havent really liked. Im beginning to think the problem is me. Maybe at the ripe old age of 29 i should probably stick to more adult titles (i definitely wont cos i never learn). This book from my extensive google research will be a 4 book series so i believe thats why there isnt too much vampire action as she may be delaying that for the later books, i would recommend this book to people who like a YA murder mystery type storyline with some vampire action thrown in at the end.