Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met a mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen. Sometimes life-ending.Together Ethan and Lena can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan't eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

I am pretty unimpressed by this book. I finished because it wasn't bad and I prefer to finish whatever I start unless it's completely unbearable. The problem with this one was the character changes. I know they're important when it comes to a series, especially the second book. I also take issue with the fact that every second book seems to always be about problems in a relationship. I know that can be a big help in making the story go somewhere, but man, it's getting pretty old.

I really didn't like Lena much throughout the book. In fact, I enjoyed the parts she wasn't in quite a bit more. She was pulling the same ol' tricks as last time and her attitude was quite annoying. I liked Ethan pretty well, but I just wanted to scream at him "Hello! Can you please stop letting Lena treat you like garbage?!" I can say that I really liked Link's character and we got to see quite a bit more of him this time. I was also quite interested in the new twist in his story.

There were a few surprising and interesting parts that will help me want to read the next book, but overall I wasn't that impressed. Somehow, it managed to be predictable and confusing at the same time. I found myself  just wading through to the end. An end which I wasn't that impressed with, but was just intriguing enough to make me go pick up the next book.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed but it really wasn't bad either. Just slow. Most of the good parts are so intertwined with the story that I can't really mention them.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: October 2010
Pages: 503
Series: 2/4
Rating: 3 stars