Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Release Date: 18th October, 2011

Publisher: Puffin

Pages: 516pgs

The Story

Ethan Wate thought he was getting used to the strange, impossible events happening in Gatlin, his small Southern town. But now that Ethan and Lena have returned home, strange and impossible have taken on new meanings. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of Lena's Claiming. Even Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals is affected - and their abilities begin to dangerously misfire. As time passes, one question becomes clear: What - or who - will need to be sacrificed to save Gatlin?

For Ethan, the chaos is a frightening but welcome distraction. He's being haunted in his dreams again, but this time it isn't by Lena - and whatever is haunting him is following him out of his dreams and into his everyday life. Even worse, Ethan is gradually losing pieces of himself - forgetting names, phone numbers, even memories. He doesn't know why, and most days he's too afraid to ask.

Sometimes there isn't just one answer or one choice. Sometimes there's no going back. And this time there won't be a happy ending.

The Review

I had a profound love for the author's first book, Beautiful Creatures. There's no denying about that well-known fact. It was adventurous, dark, gritty, magical and a powerful book of words written by two very awesome lady authors. They definitely had a winner there. However despite my confessed love of the first book, the sequel Beautiful Darkness (if you haven't read my review you can read it here) was pretty disappointing and it didn't live up to the much hyped-up debut novel that I loved so, so much. While BEAUTIFUL CHAOS is still in the same boat for me, however I enjoyed it a little bit more than the sequel and there were certain scenes and character lines that were beyond hilarious and it was much darker compared to the first two books which suited my taste in gothic-like literature just fine. And of course, this will please many fans of this young adult series.

Let's just get this straight . . . After the events of the seventeenth moon in Beautiful Darkness, combined with the crazy ordeal Lena had to face concerning the Mortal and Caster worlds, the title of BEAUTIFUL CHAOS suits it perfectly. With the town Gatlin suffering from mass destruction, heat, and deaths with little explaination, not to mention with Lena claiming herself as both light and dark, you can definitely say that chaos is how you would describe this book in one word because as you can see there's a lot going on this time round for the characters. But there's still a question that needs to be answered: How can Ethan, the main character, stop this destruction hitting his town? And trust me, the question that lies here will be answered by the time you finish this book.

Like in the previous two novels, Ethan Wate remains a fantastic protagonist. He continues to face down consequences caused by himself and his troublesome girlfriend, Lena, and he tends to cares about the people around him despite the many things that stand in his way of achieving particular things. If I had a boyfriend of any kind . . . it would be Ethan all the way and no one shall challenge me otherwise! He is perfection compared to most fictional boys I've read in young adult books. Mainly because he can do no wrong. Literally. Lena on the other hand, I loved her in the first book but my heart was stomped on several times in the sequel. She was going off the plot during that time (though I don't blame her because her mummy is evil to the bone and perhaps a little crazy than others) but she made me dislike her in many ways. She was acting weird, she was trusting the wrong people, she didn't care about Ethan nor appreciated him . . . you get what I mean. But surprisingly her character was really likeable in this third installment and a lot of her comments were pretty hilarious, especially when it came to Olivia - a girl you met previously in Beautiful Darkness.

Okay I hate to admit this to you all but I don't care about Lena in the way I care about Liv's (Olivia) character because she possesses the many qualities that every girl heroine should have in them. She's super smart, snarky with enough comebacks to throw out to you that will have you in happy tears and she often cares about people - strangers even - as much Ethan does in terms of wanting to protect them. So my heart is all for Liv and she's one of the few characters I wanted on the scene. Like . . . All. The. Time. Same goes with the character John Breed, the bad boy of the town and one you'd met in the sequel also. John Breed wasn't 'my boy' at first and I didn't particularly like him. But after this book he is one of my boys and it was great to see his character shine in a different light - in a more likeable light I mean. Without revealing too much, let's just say Liv has an unexpected love interest on her horizons and while I didn't agree with Ethan getting jealous over the fact of someone actually being interested in Liv (he has no right to get jealous by the way considering he didn't get with Liv like I wanted him to that bad, bad boy), but I'm sure readers will be giving the green light on Liv's new romance. I certainly have!

Overall, after skimming some boring parts of the book, I was quite pleased on how the events of BEAUTIFUL CHAOS had turned out. And don't get me started on the cliffhanger - one I saw coming but didn't want to actually happen but it kind of did kind of cliffhanger. Anyway, I highly recommend this book to readers who have already read this series so far. While the book had a slow beginning and while it never beats my love for the first book, Beautiful Creatures, but this third installment will entertain readers on all sorts of levels and perhaps will make you cry and laugh a little. Mostly laugh because there's these hilarious comeback scenes between Lena and Liv that was so awesome and they said things to each other that was so true as well and - well wait a second, you'll have to find out for yourselves. *smirks*

The Rating

4/5 stars