Critique: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) 1/3

This is definitely a series worth reading.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

World Building

 

The world that these authors build is intriguing. Yet it’s incomplete. If the authors had more time to think things through, I imagine these problems would have been fixed.

Instead of terms like ‘witch’ or ‘mage’, magic users in the Caster Chronicles are called ‘Casters’. The term ‘witch’ is reduced to a stereotype. This is annoying because it reinforces our ideas that witches are bad. Yes, using ‘Caster’ removes all bad connotations, but stereotyping ‘witch’ does nothing to help or hinder this.

Someone says it’s a cliché to call incubuses vampires. But they are vampires. They are super strong/fast and they drink blood. An incubus is a sex demon. Changing the name for the fun of it is bad but to use a name with its own meanings, meanings incompatible with the being itself, is a bad mistake.

Casters have green eyes unless they choose to go Dark, in which case their eyes turn gold. Yet Lena’s cousin Ryan has blue eyes. I don’t know what’s going on with Ryan and it’s never explained in any of the books in this series.

As ‘a room of earth’, the Caster Library is a neutral place in which magic can’t be used. It’s clear that Dark Casters are fiery in nature. The affinity of Light Casters is never stated but considering Naturals (Light Casters) control the weather, maybe Light Casters are linked with wind and water?

On a Caster’s sixteenth birthday, they choose whether to be Light or Dark and stay that way forever. So the choice of a pubescent child determines their behaviour forever, with no way to control their choices? I find determinism as a whole to be a faulty line of philosophical thought so I’m not inclined to support this in story lines. Considering the Curse means the Book of Moons chooses whether a Duchannes child is Light or Dark, it makes sense for them to stay this way forever, because they have choice itself ripped away from them. But for every Caster to go through this isn’t sensible.

 

 

As the second Duchannes Natural, Lena can choose either Light or Dark.

However, Lena learns near the end of the book that the family members on the opposite side will die. Lena doesn’t want Ridley (basically her sister) or Macon (basically her father; every Incubus is Dark) to die because of her actions. So she chooses neither. Throughout the rest of the novel you expect Lena to choose Light so this put a spanner in the works.

            She still strikes Serafina, Larkin and Hunter with lightning. Something that’s rather fatal. Then she resurrects Ethan which kills Macon. So apart from Ridley, Lena might as well have chosen Light. (It would have saved all the problems in the following books! But that’s what makes this series interesting.)

As a result of not choosing, Lena has one green and one gold eye, so she’s Light and Dark. Lena mixes these colours up in a poem and Ethan thinks they ‘looked the same to her’. Maybe if she can’t differentiate between the colours, she can’t differentiate between Light and Dark, the colours they represent?

 

 

Grammar

 

The punctuation and grammar are largely done well.

            This first example isn’t a mistake but rather a lack of clarity. Link tries ‘to figure out how to hook up and hide from his mom at the same time.’ Unfortunately this sounds like he’s trying to hook up with his mum! If these two items were the other way around, there would be no confusion.

Certain words pertaining to the lore of the Caster Universe always begin with majuscules: Caster, Incubus, Keeper, Mortal, Seer etc. For ‘Keeper’ this is fine because, as a title, it’s a proper noun. But when it’s a common noun like ‘mortal’ or ‘caster’, a majuscule is erroneous. It’s equivalent to always writing ‘Cat’ and ‘Dog’. To give ‘Mortal’ and ‘Caster’ a majuscule each time is like always using ‘Cat’ and ‘Dog’.

 

Of course, there were outright errors.

            Emily is quoted with speech marks (“x”) instead of quotation marks (‘x’). But this isn’t the biggest problem: elsewhere, this novel quotes with quotation marks. So not only is this a mistake but it’s inconsistent!

Earl is ‘Savannah’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. Right now, they were on.’ Considering that Savannah is on Earl’s lap and he’s touching her thigh, that last sentence is redundant.

            In one sentence, we get ‘also known as, the girl’. This comma has no grammatical purpose and it adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence.

            One paragraph has exposition about Macon and then Serafina speaking. These should be in separate paragraphs. Unfortunately this is neither the first nor the last example of this problem.

            Halfway through one of the concluding chapters, the book switches to Lena’s perspective. A separate chapter would’ve been more appropriate, to properly delineate between Ethan (the voice of the rest of the book). The subject of the material was so vastly different that, even if they were written from the same perspective, I would have recommended splitting them.

            Referring to his shirts, Ethan says, ‘They all said different things, today it was Harley Davidson.’ When one main clause is next to another, using a comma is incorrect. Instead, a full stop, semi-colon or a conjunction would have been better. To top this all off, the second clause makes it clear that Ethan’s shirts say ‘different things’. Thus the first clause is unnecessary which means this mistake needn’t have happened!

 

No, Carers aren’t on Benefits

 

People say carers are on benefits because the government pays them. By that logic, all civil servants, and all ministers for that matter, would be on benefits. Clearly they’re not. So it’s a flimsy argument at best and wilful stupidity at worst.

 

Carers get paid below the minimum wage. The hours they work far exceed the 48 hour limit put on other workers. Both of these are illegal and frankly insulting. Carers enable disabled people to live fulfilling lives. Carers often sacrifice their own wellbeing to achieve this. More respect needs to be shown. So even if they were on benefits, that doesn’t detract from the work they do.

Why the Phrase ‘Reasonable Excuse’ is Pointless

A reason explains something.

 

An excuse is an attempt to provide a mitigating circumstance that seeks to lessen the blame for something.

 

So a ‘reasonable excuse’ would be mitigation that has a reason.

 

In other words, a reasonable excuse is a reason.

 

So why not just use the word ‘reason’, thus avoiding the bad connotations with the word ‘excuse’?

Critique: Your Honour

The quality of acting was phenomenal, particularly the characters of Adam and Big Mo. They are my joint favourite characters. I’m not usually taken in by criminal badasses but Big Mo was just perfect.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Adam visits the sight of his mother’s murder on the first anniversary, 9^th October. Being intimidated to leave (then follow), Adam accidentally kills a guy. Michael, a judge and Adam’s father, takes Adam to the police station but when he learns the guy was Rocko, son of mob boss Jimmy Baxter, Michael decides they need a cover-up.

Michael asks a favour from his friend Charlie who makes Kofi get rid of the car. The police think it’s stolen so Kofi is blamed for Rocko’s death. Charlie makes sure Kofi takes the fall.

            (Admittedly, this was via torture: Kofi is locked in a car with rising CO2 levels, making it harder to breathe. This scene has intermittent flashes of Adam using his inhaler, making it easier to breathe. Both Kofi and Adam are exposed to gas but to different effects. That was a great bit of cinematography.)

            Michael is the judge of Kofi’s case. Considering Kofi is accused of stealing Michael’s dead wife’s car, I’m surprised Michael’s allowed to judge it.

Once Kofi is sentenced, Adam stands in the empty courtroom on the accused side. So Adam feels guilty for Rocko’s death and Kofi’s prison time. As Kofi dies and other events unfold, this guilt keeps on eating away at Adam. You can see the weight of it all by Adam’s mannerism and posture.

 

 

Adam and Frannie

 

In the first scene of episode one, Adam wakes up with a woman in his bed. As the episode goes on, as things get worse and worse and Adam gets more and more scared, his whole demeanour diminishes so that appears years younger. It’s like his age went from twenty-four to fourteen.

Show naked Adam and Frannie in very first scene. Don’t see nakedness any other time in show. Yes, it was good to see them in bed to solidify that they were together but nakedness wasn’t needed to emphasise the point.

It turns out that the woman he’s seeing, Frannie, is his photography teacher. Adam being seventeen means it’s not illegal but shagging your pupils must be against school policy. Frannie stepped in when Adam’s mother died. So Frannie is his surrogate mother… and he’s shagging her? Mummy issues.

Adam starts seeing Sophia, sister of Rocko. It was disappointing to see him cheat on Frannie. But: he’s a bundle of emotions; he can date Sophia out in the open but not Frannie; and he’s obsessed with Rocko so being with his sister is an extension of this. None of this makes cheating okay, of course, but it does make it understandable.

Near the start in photography class, Adam said of photographer Vivian “I love her. Like, really, really love her” and it was clear Adam was talking about Frannie. Later, Adam and Weasley seem to be friends again (if not a little awkward) and Frannie asks to see Adam. Frannie says has put in her notice: Adam’s nearly eighteen so they won’t have to hide their relationship so Frannie’s applying for jobs near MCU, Adam’s chosen university. Considering Adam wants to stay in New Orleans with Sophia, this is unfortunate on Frannie’s part.

            Frannie sees Adam and Sophia holding hands and says high when they sit down in a café. Frannie asks Sophia if she has Italian roots: on mum’s side (dad’s side is Scottish, yet everything’s been done to make dad look like Italian mob boss). Frannie repeats Adam’s words about Vivian. Ouch! Later they meet alone and Frannie says Adam’s simply fascinated with her because he killed her brother. I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed!

            Once Charlie knows about Adam and Frannie, he approaches her in a bar. She was always a young teacher but she’s shed her years, appearing almost childlike. Frannie can’t tell if Charlie’s campaigning or hitting on her. That’s brilliant. Then he replies that she should know what’s appropriate because she’s a teacher. Burn! What Charlie says is open to interpretation yet Frannie right there admits to it. Charlie tells her to end it with Adam and Frannie replies that it will hurt sensitive, seventeen year-old Adam. Charlie’s reply? “Exactly.” Ouch. But then Frannie says it’s a shame a seventeen year-old left someone to die in the gutter. What a way for Charlie to find out what Adam did! It put him on the back-foot for the first time.

 

 

Michael’s Deception

 

For a judge of all people to cover up a crime is awful. Yet Michael’s first duty is for the safety of his child.

Michael is smooth at lying. I won’t say he’s ‘good’. It’s just that with all the lying he’s seen in court, he knows what makes a bad lie, so he knows what to avoid. Mob boss thinks Michael killed Rocko and Michael, of course, doesn’t correct him in order to save Adam from danger.

The guy who tried to blackmail Michael barely knew anything. But Michael tells the mob boss Jimmy Baxter that the blackmail guy knew everything, just so the blackmailer would be murdered and thus no longer a problem.

The police officer Nancy has photos which Michael explains by saying Robin cheated. So either Michael has to tell Adam that his mum was a cheater or Michael has to tell Adam he said that to cover their tracks. Michael goes for the former and Adam doesn’t react badly (maybe it made him think about his own cheating?)

 

 

Carlo’s Trial

 

Carlo, Rocko’s brother, kills Kofi in jail. His lawyer gets so frustrated with Carlo which was simply hilarious to watch.

On Michael’s birthday, he throws the blackmailer into the sea, Carlo Baxter is arrested for killing Kofi, and then Carlo’s bail hearing is held on the same day. But on many occasions, people complain how slow the New Orlean’s justice system is, so how can the first hearing of the case be held on the same day as the arrest? For that matter, how is the case concluded so quickly? Michael only survives because says can save Carlo from conviction and hence from execution.

I’m surprised that Michael is allowed to be a judge on the Carlo case. Carlo killed Kofi and Kofi (everyone believes) killed Carlo’s brother with Michael’s dead wife’s car. So Michael could be biased to let Carlo off the hook.

During court case, Michael lets Carlo’s bestie stand witness, even though he knows the friend has incriminating evidence. The mob boss is furious but Michael slipped medication into the friend so that he needed to go to hospital. This meant that as the defence couldn’t cross-examine him, all of his evidence had to be discounted. This was clever on Michael’s part: to not allow bestie to testify would have been suspicious and thus put the whole trial in jeopardy.

This court case contained my favourite conversation. Carlo says he feared for his life when Kofi shut the prison cell door and after their kafuffle Kofi walked out. McGhee, the prosecutor, says the doors can’t be opened from the inside. (In his anger, Carlo calls McGhee ‘a stupid cunt’.) McGhee then shows the video footage: Kofi didn’t shut the door. With Carlo’s whole defence in pieces, McGhee asks, ‘Who’s the stupid cunt now.’ Honestly, that is perfection.

Carlo found not guilty of murder. But how? None of the evidence pointed that way. Michael did change the verdict that the jury wrote on paper but at least one of them would know the verdict read out wasn’t the one they reached.

Michael bans media or observers from witnesses the trial, other than the families of those accused. Lee and Nancy are sensible exceptions, the former being lawyer for the deceased and Nancy being the police officer who investigated him. Adam is allowed in, though I don’t understand why. How does being the son of a judge let you bend the rules? Yes, this whole show is about corruption but letting Adam into the court room is complete, obvious and public disregard of the law.

 

 

The Charade Unravels

 

Michael manages to keep the charade going despite some unravelling. But nearing the end of the series, those closest to Michael start to pull the threads (and the lies) free.

            Nancy does some digging. She goes to the graveyard and asks the homeless guy if he saw a father and son on the 9^th (the same day Rocko died.) The homeless guy say no, they came on the 10^th. Plus the court records show Michael was in court at that time on the 9^th. So yes, both these things are suspicious, but I don’t understand why Nancy went to the graveyard in the first place. What made her want to investigate Michael’s claims?

            Lee, Kofi’s lawyer, learns from Big Mo that Kofi didn’t have the car on the day Rocko died. So she thinks Adam and Michael are the only ones who could have driven that car on the day Rocko died. (Never mind it could have been stolen on the 9^th, like Michael said, and then taken by Kofi on the 10^th. Of course we know this didn’t happen but Lee doesn’t even see it as a possibility.)

            So in both these cases, I’m not convinced that the unravelling of Michael’s deceptions is feasible. It was excellent for the plot, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t executed as well as it could be.

 

 

Heart-breaking Ending

 

Adam’s baseball was in Kofi’s possessions (because baseball and Kofi were in the car together) so Eugene inherited it. Lee sells the baseball to Michael (who recognises it as Adam’s). Eugene uses the money to buy a gun and shoot Carlo but misses and hits Adam in the next. So Adam starts making noises, and blood starts spurting from his mouth, just like Rocko experienced when he died. I didn’t expect that at all. Some people might label it as cosmic justice but it was a fantastic plot twist for me. At Michael got to hug his son as he lay dying. At least, I presume Adam died. If Adam survived, that brings the possibility of a second series which I would be thrilled to watch.