Beautiful Beings (Beautiful Beings #1)

Great start to a romantic and mysterious angel series!

Great start to a romantic and mysterious angel series!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not what I expected...

I struggled with this one. It felt a tad underdeveloped and quite a bit rushed. The beginning held some promise, but as the book progressed I found my self sighing loudly, rolling my eyes, and wishing the story would just get on with it already.

Lux is supposed to be this ass-kicking demon slayer who is forced to transfer to a new school because of the trouble her little hunting expeditions got her into at her previous school. She is told that she will need to find others like her to battle the increasing number of demons populating humanity. She ends up at this hoity-toity private school where she immediately (and questionably) catches the eyes of three apparently irresistible guys: Asher, Braxton, and Moore.

After that, the bulk of the book consists of Lux and her never-before-experienced lust/love for these three guys. She bounces around between all of them fairly easily, constantly wrapped up in someone's arms or seeing an "overwhelming look of love" in their eyes. At various points in the book, each one has Lux's undivided attention and makes her absolutely certain he is the one for her. She is so annoyingly flighty that I never figure out what she truly feels for any one of them. The relationships between these characters aren't solid in the least, and in the end, there is no basis for any of the decisions Lux makes in regards to her certainty of which one is her 'soulmate.'

All this sketchy romance clouds out the rest of the storyline, so much so, that I'm not sure what the whole point of the book even is. We are led to believe and expect one thing and a whole other array of events occur. The last twenty percent of the book was filled with unexplained transformations, never-ending fight scenes, and lame dialogue that pretty much just explain away everything that was happening or going to happen. I'm sorry, but I just don't see real villains explaining their devious plots to their victims in detail before carrying them out. Rather than creatively unfolding the climactic end through events and the clever actions of the characters, the author chose to spell everything out in the small span of a couple of pages as if she realized there needed to be a point to the story other than the googly eyes between Lux and her lustful admirers.

I give this book two stars instead of one because the beginning offered such promise for the rest of the book. I was looking forward to getting to know Lux and her past, and I was particularly interested in learning more about Asher and how he came to be. Unfortunately, we never get a glimpse of anything in depth and when something extraordinary does happen to any of the characters we are simply told about it 'the next day' instead of actually getting to experience it along with him or her. As I said, the book felt very rushed, seemed to be missing structure or organization, and lacked plausible reasoning for the events that unfolded and for many of the decisions made by the characters.

If you can't tell, this book really didn't do it for me. It had four stars (on GoodReads) overall and I can't fathom why. I don't particularly like bashing books and the work that authors put into them, but this one seemed to require more work from me to finish than it took for the author to write. It really irks me that if an author fills a book with sappy romance scenes, then it's considered 'good,' even though the storyline and character development is overlooked.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Lux Collins finds herself on the move again.  Her family is movi

Lux Collins finds herself on the move again.  Her family is moving from Seattle to San Francisco.  Even though it is because of her that they have to move, she is still not very happy about it.  What teenager wants to move during the school year, but then again, Lux is anything but your typical teenager.  Since Lux was 2 years old, she has been able to see both angels and demons.  You see, Lux is a demon hunter and has been charged with that task since she was very young.  Her dad and mom both got great new jobs, but the real reason they moved was because of the call Lux has.  Lothario, her current guardian informs her that there is much work to be done in San Franciso, but what that involves, Lux has yet to find out.  As they are driving into their new neighborhood, her dad slows down to show them his boss's mansion.  Lux immediately locks eyes with the boy in the driveway, feeling a connection to him.  It turns out that this young man is Braxton Kingsley, who also happens to be the one who shows her around when she starts school at a prestigious private academy.  Lux notices that the students at the academy are some of the most beautiful creatures she has ever seen.  In fact, at lunch that day, Brax introduces her to Shayne and Moore Hatchett, who are two of the most beautiful beings she has ever seen.  Lux feels unnaturally compelled to Moore, who causes her to practically loose all her inhibition, as she is extremely attracted to him.  Then again, she is also very attracted to Brax, and the feeling is mutual, something that does not go unnoticed my Moore's sister Shayne.  On top of that she meets Asher, and feels an undeniable chemistry with him also.  She soon finds out that these three play a much bigger role in her life and in her calling as a demon hunter, and none of them are what they seem.




I typically have not read a great deal of angel books, though I have found myself enjoying them more lately, and was intrigued when I read the synopsis of this book.  The main character is Lux, who is a teenage demon hunter.  The secondary characters are Brax, Moore, Asher, and Shayne, also play large rolls in the book.    Brax is a hottie and immediately has a thing for Lux, and these two wind up spending a lot of time together and it seems as if they are a couple.  He is also the first person who finds out more about what Lux is, and in fact, finds himself a bigger part of the equation.  Asher is your hot bad boy type who quickly becomes friends with Lux, though he and Lux also have a undeniably electric chemistry between them.  Moore is the third hottie in the book, and is a rich playboy type who oozes with sex appeal and he knows it.  Shayne is Moore's sister and is really evil, though she tries to cover it up.  Lux finds herself attracted to all three of these guys, even though Moore happens to be the one who has the strongest hold on her.  While the romance is hot, I did not like the fact that Lux so easily bounced from guy to guy, making out with all of them, yet didn't really seem to feel that she was doing anything wrong, which left me rather disappointed in her because of this.  Asher's role becomes clear towards the end of the book, and both he and Brax rise to the occasion when they are all forced into battle.  Unfortunately, Shayne's manipulative and evil ways result in a murder, false accusation and imprisonment of one character, and the mysterious disappearance of yet another.  I am curious to see where Gow takes the story next.  

Kailin is one of my favorite authors, but that never changes how

Kailin is one of my favorite authors, but that never changes how I feel about the writing of a book.  Kailin pens her characters well developed in this paranormal story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you reading. Other than the character 'Lux Collins' getting me a bit dizzy between her boyfriends, I loved the book. A nice easy read that is recommended for all YA and not so YA readers.




This review is based on a complimentary copy from the author which was provided for an honest review.

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