This week’s New Series Alert post is a couple of hours late, since I am just returning from catching the late showing of Beautiful Creatures. More of that at the end, but first things first. With the many new releases this week, I was expecting a ton of new series listings. I have a grand total of…one. Yep, there is only one newbie for this week, a young adult release from Elsie Chapman. Dualed is the first book of her new series (also called Dualed).
Synopsis…
The city of Kersh is a safe haven, but the price of safety is high. Everyone has a genetic Alternate—a twin raised by another family—and citizens must prove their worth by eliminating their Alts before their twentieth birthday. Survival means advanced schooling, a good job, marriage—life.
Fifteen-year-old West Grayer has trained as a fighter, preparing for the day when her assignment arrives and she will have one month to hunt down and kill her Alt. But then a tragic misstep shakes West’s confidence. Stricken with grief and guilt, she’s no longer certain that she’s the best version of herself, the version worthy of a future. If she is to have any chance of winning, she must stop running not only from her Alt, but also from love . . . though both have the power to destroy her.
Elsie Chapman’s suspenseful YA debut weaves unexpected romance into a novel full of fast-paced action and thought-provoking philosophy. When the story ends, discussions will begin about this future society where every adult is a murderer and every child knows there is another out there who just might be better.
Now, just a quick (well, quick for me) word about the Beautiful Creatures movie. If I had to sum it up in just one word, that word would be…
Unfortunate.
I struggled at times with the books, since I found that they could drag endlessly and wander aimlessly on more than one occasion. I decided to give the movies a shot, supporting the genre and all that. And really, how bad could it be? Uh, yeah. Way melodramatic, overacted, bad music and cheesy. And I found there was just so much changed from the book that it only had a passing resemblance to the characters and plot I remember. I seriously thought about just leaving half-way through, and even though I didn’t hate it, I did find myself laughing at it and rolling my eyes more times than I care to admit. Oh well, I still have a good feeling about The Host, coming out at the end of March.
I didnt read the books so that must be why I found the movie fantastic. I want to go see it again and again. This comming from the person that read the twilight books before there was even a whisper of the movies. Then when the movies came out…I felt the same way you do about the Beautiful Creatures movie. Critics everywhere are raving about how good Beautiful Creatures is and it makes me wonder if they also didnt read the books. Maybe thats the only way to enjoy this movie. Im sorry that it disapointed you but I for one hope there will be a sequel. I loved the story line, the sound track, the gothic feel to the movie and the acting. The acting IMO blew Twilight out of the water. I always cringed when watching Kristen and Rob acted together but the way the two main characters acted together in Beautiful Creatures made me believe it was real. In fact here’s an article I read on the subject that I found interesting. http://www.wetpaint.com/network/articles/5-reasons-beautiful-creatures-is-better-than-twilight-will-ever-be
Hey Kim…
I actually have talked to others who didn’t read the series and they loved it, too. I think sometimes that reading the book first builds up your expectations and can leave you more disappointed in the movie. But then, if I don’t read the books first, then after the movie I don’t want to since I already know what is going to happen. Just can’t win. But glad you liked the movie, though. I will watch it again when it hits video and see if I get more out of it.
I loved the Beautiful Creatures book (not five star love but enjoyed it greatly; have so far also read Beautiful Darkness & Beautiful Chaos) and had high expectations for the film, which I saw on Monday.
And… yeah. Taken on its own, I don’t think it was bad, and there were things about it that I loved a lot (the scenery and especially the costumes). I didn’t find much wrong with the acting as such, but I did think the characterisation of more than one character – Macon more than anyone else – was awful (and I am really not going to blame Jeremy Irons for that, because the man *can* act).
The plot changes… the less said about those the better. :-/ It really was just very loosely based on some of the concepts and characters in the book, and while I have no problem accepting that a successful translation of a book into a movie requires some changes (e.g. I wasn’t overjoyed about condensing Amma & Marian into one character but I could accept that as something needed to streamline the story), I didn’t appreciate the major plot changes at all.
And I was truly disappointed by the way Macon’s character was handled. There was none of the delicious air of mystery about him that there was in the book, and he also came off as much more unlikeable really.
The changes to some of the characters were jarring – like you say, Macon did not give me any kind of warm vibe at all. He went from intriguing to a little creepy for me. I found Amma’s role very diminished, too, compared to the book. It was surprising that they cut her back so much, even though like you say she actually had the role of two characters combined into one.