The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

The Beautiful

by Renée Ahdieh
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019
Pages: 440
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Amazon, Goodreads

“My actions speak for me. If you feel them to be heartless and cruel, then so be it: I am heartless and cruel.”

About the book

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent in the middle of the carnival season, Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city, from its music to its fancy soirées and even its danger. She becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain.

When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in Sébastien's own lair — the second dead girl to turn up in recent weeks — Celine battles her attraction to Sébastien and suspicions about his guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

After a third murder, New Orleans becomes gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose — one who has now set Celine in his sights. As the murderer stalks her, Celine finally takes matters into her own hands, only to find herself caught in the midst of an age-old feud between the darkest creatures of the night, where the price of forbidden love is her life.

Review

I’m having a hard time putting together my thoughts on this novel, I’m going to break it up into two parts — what I liked about the novel and what I didn’t like.

I know The Beautiful is going to be compared to Twilight but they are completely different stories. I admit, I loved the Twilight books when I was in high school; the movie series is what ruined the franchise. Don’t go into The Beautiful thinking it’s some high school love story about glittering vampires. This story actually follows Celine, a young French woman travels to New Orleans to escape a dark secret. She accepts an offer to design a gown for an alluring, mysterious woman who takes Celine under her wing and introduces her to an intoxicating crowd of strange, non-quite-human individuals. Death soon follows Celine, and she discovers that beautiful does not mean safe.

The Beautiful is marketed as a vampire novel, but it’s really about evil. The word vampire isn’t even used as a description until the very end. I feel like this gave an added dark element to the storyline. Instead of Celine arriving in a new world and acting all “OMG vampires! How crazy!”, it’s more of Celine discovering that is evil in this world and that she has some wickedness inside herself.

The author does a great job of providing a dark, creepy atmosphere throughout the story while showcasing Celine’s unwavering fearlessness and endless wit.

Such as: 

“You do not belong in this world, Celine. It may be beautiful — intoxicating even — but beauty is a danger to behold, for it often masks the decay lurking beneath. Et ça fini toujours dans le sang.”

And it always ends in blood.

“I am not so captivated by the beautiful, monsieur.” Celine met his gaze without wavering. “For I know beauty is only a moment in time.”

Though I enjoyed the story, and the novel was full of attention-grabbing quotes, I felt there was a lack of character development that could have really made The Beautiful stand out. I won’t get into the ending because I don’t want to revel spoilers but I also felt it was anticlimactic. The lack of an emotional connection to the characters is what ultimately made The Beautiful fall flat for me.

RATING (out of five puppies)