Book: The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh
Read From: 25th June - 29th June 2021
Rating: 3/5 stars
Summary: After fleeing Paris. Celine seeks refuge in New Orleans and becomes quickly embroiled by the glitzy underworld of Le Cour des Lions and it's mysterious leader - Basiten. When suspicions of a serial killer being on the loose arise, Celine takes matters into her own hands. But what she doesn't expect is to reveal shocking secrets about the darkest creatures of the Underworld.
I read The Wrath and The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh back in February and I absolutely adored the lyrical and atmospheric writing style! I was so pleased that The Beautiful was just as evocative, I was so captivated by the world Ahdieh had created and how the darker setting built up intrigue surrounding the murder-mystery element of this novel.
I thought most of the characters were incredible - Celine was the typical strong female main character which I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of seeing in books. I loved her friendship with Pippa who I thought was such a compassionate and loyal side character. Odette was simply iconic and Bastien was the morally grey character everybody knows and loves. Even the characters I didn’t like so much were still incredibly well developed - like Michael for example. I’m intrigued to see what happens with his character development in The Damned but I have a gut feeling that it’s going to involve a certain relationship and I’m NOT going to like it...
The only minor issues I had with this book were the repetitiveness and the pacing. It’s obvious that Celine was racked with suspicion of Bastien’s involvement in the murders, and its no secret that he’s a dark and mysterious character. I just feel like showing this behaviour would have been enough, it started to lose a lot of the effect when we were constantly told about it. I think if I read this book in a single sitting and took a shot every time Bastien was compared to the devil, I would be very drunk by the end. In terms of the pacing, I could fully appreciate WHY it was slow but I just wanted answers, and because of this I found myself becoming a little disinterested at parts.
One thing I will say is that if you’re expecting a vampire story, this is probably not the book to pick up. Vampires are of course involved, but it’s more so near the end of the book that discussions about them start to take place. Thankfully, I went into this already knowing that so I definitely wasn’t let down but I’ve seen a few people be disappointed by this so I do feel like it’s worth bringing to light in my review.
Overall I really enjoyed this! It’s definitely not one of my favourite books of all time, nor is it my favourite Ahdieh novel, but it was a great book all the same with its great characters and amazing writing. I don’t feel a desperate need to pick up the sequel immediately, but it is one that I’ll be getting around to (hopefully) soon!