Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
"Gatlin wasn't a complicated place; Gatlin was Gatlin." (Before.5)On the surface, Gatlin might seem pretty simple: it's a plain old Southern town. (For more on the Southern thing, check out our "G...
Genre
Beautiful Creatures takes place in Gatlin, South Carolina. A quick jaunt over to Google Maps confirms that, yes, that is in the South. Gatlin might not be in Louisiana, but Beautiful Creatures has...
What's Up With the Title?
Macon Ravenwood refers to Mortals (like us!) as "beautiful creatures" (2.4.83). He says that he envies our (yeah, we're still including ourselves here) persistence and our undying belief that we ca...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." – Martin Luther King, Jr.Light and dark are opposing forces. (Duh.) Darkness is of...
What's Up With the Ending?
What's bound to happen at the end of the first novel in a series? A cliffhanger, duh. And our authors aren't too subtle about it. By the end of the book, nothing is really resolved: Lena hasn't cho...
Tough-o-Meter
Beautiful Creatures is narrated by a sixteen-year-old guy. He's very well-read, but he doesn't use a big vocabulary or ponder esoteric thoughts or anything like that. Actually, Ethan's voice is rea...