Book Review: Beautiful Chaos
Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles: Book 3)
Published: October 18, 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown
Genre: Young adult, Fantasy, Romance
Beautiful and spellbinding, this is a great book for the young adults of this generation. What I loved about this story was how it flowed, how it moved and picked up the ending. I have to say it progressed very well and picked up neatly. The style of this novel was amazing. The ending, which was unsuspecting and threw me such a huge curve ball, was done beautifully. Instead of showing us the descent of the character through text and description, drove us into the mind of the character, creating the feel of the ending, the sense of falling through style was brilliantly done. It was a piece of art, that style. Next to that, you had the addition of the poetry, the rhymes that were styled well with a good rhyme scheme and then added to the plot rather than distracted from it.
Beautiful Chaos is the third book in the Caster Chronicles, revolving around a forbidden love between Lena Duchannes, a caster (witch) and Ethan Wate, a mortal. Between the two of them, in this novel they have to deal with the turmoil that Lena has caused by claiming herself for both the Light and the Dark, factions of the Caster world, and wrecking the natural Order. Together they have to balance life, friendship and their romance while they deal with the consequences of their love.
In addition to that, one of the greatest things about this novel was the subplot revolving around Amma. We got to see her descent not only into darkness, but also into madness. Meanwhile, Lena’s character seemed to have dulled with the addition of the other characters and their development, especially that of Link and Ridley- whose tragic love story has become more interesting. And however much I love the whole Liv/John coupling, I felt as though it were a bit of a cop out to bring them together, reflecting the Ethan/Lena relationship and removing some of the tension the characters had with one another and subtracting for their (Ivy/John) relationship, making it seem like they are together because they can’t be with the one’s they want. As real as it may seem, it just didn’t feel…real. No, what felt real in the novel was the relationship between Link and Ridley: it was complex, fun and turbulent and just a thrill ride to read, both imaginative and fun.
As far as Ethan goes, the inner struggle with himself through the representation of his death from book 1 was amazing. The whispers in the dark and the way he was losing himself by finding himself blew my mind. The way book three tied directly to book one like that was breathtaking. However, I would have liked a little more focus on Macon and his new powers, but I was content with how the book was done.