Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles # 4) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl Review

Name: Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles # 4)
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 23rd, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Buy the book on Amazon
464 pages

Summary:
Is death the end . . . or only the beginning?
Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin.But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice.Now Ethan must find a way to return to Lena - and Gatlin - as she vows to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if it means trusting old enemies or risking their loved ones' lives.Can Ethan and Lena rewrite their fate and their spellbinding love story in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series?

Goodreads

My Review:

What a great ending to a great series!  I started reading the Caster Chronicles what feels like forever ago, when the first book, Beautiful Creatures, came out and I quickly feel in love with it!  These books have a brilliant plot line where there is always tons of supernatural action, but at the same time it contains one of the cutest love stories I have ever read and has a funny Southern, small-town aspect to it as well.  This is one series that if you have not checked out already, you definitely should (especially because it is being made into a movie!).

This book picks up right after the cliffhanger in the last book, and has three separate sections: the first from Ethan's point of view, the second from Lena's, and the third from Ethan's again.  I really loved being able to see into Lena's head during her section, which is something we never really get to experience.  Plus, she has the most amazing poems!  Ethan and Lena both change a lot throughout this series, but Ethan especially changed during this book.  He literally went to the end of the universe and back to try to make it to Lena, which really intensifies their love story.

The plot in this book, though wildly imaginative and certainly interesting, just did not seem entirely believable.  It was quite anticlimactic; after spending almost the entire series trying to evade and eventually kill certain evil Dark casters and keepers, there was really no satisfying final battle at the end.  Although it was nice that this book was not the same as all other YA books with one big, intense scene at the end, the result was just that when the characters finally did run into these Dark casters and keepers, it really just was not as realistic as I was hoping (that is, as realistic as a book dealing with magic can be).  That being said, I still really enjoyed this book and the challenges and hardships that every single character had to face in order to try to bring Ethan back home.

As the final book in the series, I thought that Beautiful Redemption did a great job of exemplifying all the qualities that were truly important in this book.  Not only was there and ending that was, of course, romantically satisfying, but there were also some really true, sad sacrifices that had to be made in order for certain characters to have their happily ever after.  There was a great deal of happiness and heartache at the end of this series, and that was one of the main reasons why I loved it so much!  Everyone who's ever read any of the books in this series should read this excellent end to the series, and if you have not yet read any of the Caster Chronicles, you should definitely check them out!

My Rating: