The Beautiful

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** spoiler alert ** My rating: 3.5 stars.

I received an uncorrected galley of The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh from Bookish First for free in exchange for an honest review.

When I had an opportunity to receive an arc of the newest story from Renee Ahdieh I was beyond excited as I have been a huge fan of her work since reading her first novel, The Wrath and the Dawn. As someone who loves historical pieces, the setting for this story was right up my alley and I’m always down for vampires.

After reading this arc I find there were a number of things that I loved about this piece and a number of aspects that I was less fond of. When I began this story one of my main concerns was how much it resembled Alys Arden’s series, The Casquette Girls. This fantastic series is also about vampires set in New Orleans. However, because she is a smaller author not as many people know about this work. It is important to note that outside of the setting and the fact that there are vampires in both stories, the plots are drastically different.

This book does a great job of building the world and making it an immersive reading experience. Renee Ahdieh has such a way with words that it sometimes makes you pause. “And a goddess did not concern herself with the triflings of men.” Throughout this entire story, she did a fantastic job at making the reader love Celine for her fierceness, her confidence, and her determination to do what she felt is right. I enjoyed reading about a strong female character who would not back down in the face of fear. I also loved some of the side characters within this work including Nonna and Odette.

On the other hand, my concerns with this book are various. I feel like at times the story dragged on with trying to build up the suspense, but ultimately just left me slightly confused and with a lot of questions. I understand that Celine was left in the dark so the reader too is supposed to share in that uncertainty, but I think it would have been far more beneficial to better explain the creatures in this world and the Slyvan Vale. I also would have appreciated understanding who the Fallen and the Brotherhood are because as they mentioned these forces within the book I was just like oh cool, I have no idea why these people are at odds or what each side stands for.

I’m hoping the next book in the series will answer my questions. I’m also excited to see where the next book will take us now that Celine doesn’t remember what happened, she is with Michael, and Bastien has been turned. Now to wait until book two!