The Beautiful

Unpopular opinion coming in...I found this to be meh. I'm sure Ahdieh worked very hard on this and I haven't read anything else by her so this is NOT a criticism of her work in general. But this one...sounded so amazing. I was SO excited to pick it up that maybe my disappointment is affecting my review. Vampire/historical-fiction/murder-mystery/romance? Sold. It just never got off the ground for me. I thought it was overwritten, and I found the main character to be inexplicably and frustratingly contrary. Ex: Declares (to herself) she doesn't care about what society thinks of her; She lets her actions be dictated by society. I found her to be a very tell-not-show type of character. I found her internal struggle (I'm dark on the inside/I'm a good lady) kind of ill-founded and repetitive. I think she was supposed to present as a strong female with agency, but it didn't come across for me. Making “surprising” comments to rich and powerful men just doesn't cut it. I thought the romance could have been very sexy, but it just never made sense to me and it was too much of a slow burn. Can Bastien please have more descriptors than “Lucifer” and “beautiful”? I found the lore/family history behind it to be vague and distracting. The ending actually had a great twist, and then left me feeling totally disappointed. Unfortunately, I don't care enough about these characters to figure it out in a sequel. Actually, I'd read a sequel if it was about Pippa or Odette. I found these secondary characters really enjoyable and more interesting than the main character, Celine. I wanted to like this so hard. My usual MO is to drop it after 50 or so pages if I'm not into it, and I did finish it. So there was definitely enough to keep me going, just not enough to keep me caring. I'm sure this book will find its crowd, and I wish it well.