I have seriously mixed thoughts on Beautiful Chaos. On one hand, I love Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's writing and, like always, it shines through. The second half of this book was exciting, and left me not just with tears in my eyes, but crying. Ugly crying. On the other hand, the ending felt like a kick in the gut, and I really struggled to get into this book after a very slow start. Beautiful Chaos was not easy to read.
Imagine the movie trailer voice: THIS SUMMER, THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING TO GATLIN. We join Ethan in a darker place than we have before, and something is wrong. He's losing the plot. In addition to dangerous dreams, he's forgetting himself. Memories, phone numbers, everyday details, Ethan's losing little pieces of himself one bit at a time. Not good. He can't even confide in Amma: she's gone darker than she ever has before.
Since Lena claimed herself, both the Caster and Mortal worlds seem to be falling apart. I wasn't joking about the apocalypse. Drought, pestilence, swarms of locusts. The Caster's powers are misfiring, which is kind of dangerous when you can set fire to things with your brain. Where Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness were about choosing your own path, and taking control of your destiny, Beautiful Chaos is about dealing with the consequences, and perhaps about the inevitability of fate.
These books are so immersive. As Beautiful Chaos commenced, some quality or cadence of tone sucked me once more into the tiny world of Gatlin, and had me enthralled by that lush, hypnotic, flowing prose Garcia and Stohl have mastered. The short version: I love Garcia/Stohl's writing. The quality and feel of it. But I struggled to get into the story.
Beautiful Chaos has SO. MUCH. GOING. ON. that for the first half--that's 250 pages, folks--it felt like nothing happened. So much time was spent on setting up so many different plot threads, events, and carrying over ones from the previous book, it was overwhelming. I struggled through the beginning of Beautiful Chaos like I was walking through knee-deep mud. But then, thankfully, it got GOOD. Pages 250-500-something are exciting, mysterious, high-stakes and everything I expect from these two darned-talented authors.
The Caster Chronicles have always been dark, but Beautiful Chaos is darker. The bleak tone and hopelessness of the situation in Gatlin weighed down on me, and as much as I love revisiting the world of this series, for me it made Beautiful Chaos hard to read.
Once again, people are keeping secrets, but this time, the people we trust to have the answers--Amma, Macon Marian and the other Casters--are at a loss themselves. The safety net's gone. The stakes are higher this time; the dangers seem more real. Characters we've come to know and love get hurt. And, as the cover copy promises: this time, there's no happy ending. There's a feeling of desperation hanging over our favourite Caster-Mortal blended/extended family, and it rubs off on the reader.
Unfortunately, for me, Beautiful Chaos didn't feel like its own book, but more of a culmination of the events of those preceding it. The whole book was climax Climax CLIMAX! Then it ended. Seriously. Mega-uber-massive cliffhanger. And not in a good way. Beautiful Chaos was five hundred pages of build up to an event that <em>didn't happen in this book</em>.
I'm the first to admit I don't love cliffhangers, but I can respect a good one... and in a way, I suppose this one was, but, at the same time, there was no resolution to any of the events within this book, and that frustrates me. I was left knowing (almost) as little on page 516 as I was on page 1.
Despite these complaints, I enjoyed Beautiful Chaos. The writing is gorgeous, the stakes are high, the characters I know and love are all there hiding their secrets, and Gatlin? My oh my I love Gatlin.
Beautiful Chaos was dense, overwhelming, heartbreaking and... unsatisfying, on some level. Nevertheless, it's achieved its goal: I'm eagerly anticipating book four, if for no other reason than to find out how this one actually ends! If you're a fan of the series, read Beautiful Chaos. If you're already undecided on this series, Beautiful Chaos will do little to change your mind.
