READING: The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1) by Renne Ahdieh

Publication date: October 8 2019
Published by: GP Putnam's Sons Books for YR
Genre: Historical, Paranormal, Vampires, Mystery, Romance
Rating:

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien's guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights . . . and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.

I'm genuinely very disappointed. I know by now to always be wary of pretty covers, but after seeing all these raving reviews about The Beautiful, I though it would at least be decent.
It wasn't.

The Beautiful failed to capture my interest right from the start. The writing was almost uncanny, like it was trying very hard to be something it wasn't and was failing miserably. Each scene took forever to get through, vases and chandeliers' descriptions dragged on for ages, and there were densely worded sentences saying nothing at all. Also, phrases like "beyond your ken" (used more than twice) do not fit in a book about New Orleans me thinks, it threw me completely off.

This is supposed to be a book about vampires, but there are no vampire in sight until around 90% or so. Why take this long to reveal the plot? The whole point of buying and reading this book is to read about vampires. I absolutely can't stand it when a book promises you one thing and is marketed as, in this instance, a vampire book, when it's clearly a romance book, and not even a good one!

The characters were all one dimensional caricatures.
The big baddie's thoughts were written in monologed chapters, which to me read like "I'm evol and I vant to drink blood mwahaha". 

🤓 Not great.

The chief of New Orleans police is a 18 year old boy *eyeroll* How can you even justify that, it's impossible!
The girls were either clever or stupid, very shy or promiscuous, there was no in between. Celine was a reckless, numbnut who acted all high and mighty, but insta-loved a guy who looked dangerous, threating and unstable.
Oh but don't worry though. It's totally OK because he is soooooo dreamy!
My time machine worked everybody, I'm back in 2010 when this shit was still acceptable!
Stop putting so much importance on good looks, or rather out-of-this-world good looks, unless it fits your plot! It's not right to send these kinds of messages to young readers, or any readers for that matter.

This book was unbelievably exhausting to read. I felt like wading through mud in the last 100 pages, I just couldn't seem to finish it. When I finally did, I admittedly found the last 10 pages kinda interesting compared to the rest of the book, but definitely not interesting enough for me to read Book 2.
If you're brave enough to tackle this, you are my hero and I wish you all the best. I barely got through it.
Very unmemorable and tedious.