The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

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Cover of Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures

core novel 2009 Beautiful Creatures

Record

First published2009
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating3.78 (626,000 ratings, collected 2026-09-10)
First-edition ISBN9780316077033
Internal chronology1

Synopsis

Beautiful Creatures, published in 2009, is set in the small, tradition-bound Southern town of Gatlin, South Carolina, and follows Ethan Wate, a teenage boy who has spent his life longing to leave the town behind, and Lena Duchannes, a mysterious new arrival who moves in with her reclusive uncle. Ethan finds himself drawn to Lena despite the town's hostility toward her family, and as their bond deepens he learns that Lena belongs to a family of magic-wielding Casters and is approaching her sixteenth birthday, a milestone at which every Caster in her family is irrevocably claimed for either good or evil, a fate she has no power to choose. As the date of Lena's claiming approaches, Ethan and Lena must confront both Gatlin's small-town prejudice and the Caster family's dark, generations-old curse that hangs over her future.

Where it sits

Awards (verified)

  • William C. Morris Award, 2010: finalist; ALA/YALSA William C. Morris Award finalist, 2010, for the debut novel Beautiful Creatures.

Notes

  • From the series record (Beautiful Creatures): The main Ethan/Lena arc.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

  • Publication order, within the series Beautiful Creatures: position 1 of 4: next Beautiful Darkness (2010)
  • Internal chronology, within Beautiful Creatures: position 1 of 6: next Dangerous Creatures (2014)

Sources

← Beautiful Creatures dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.