#vampire ya

My sincerest apologies to the city of New Orleans, which I hear is quite lovely. I’d like to go there someday, but only when I can be assured that I, as a female, am considered a human being with rights in the State of Louisiana. Anyway, whenever I think of New Orleans, all I can hear in my head is the song from A Streetcar Named Marge. And then I think about beignets. Mmm. And how I never learned French, instead I spent all my time learning German, which is useless, unless you’re hoping to eavesdrop on German tourists (a note to German tourists: Rede keinen Scheiß, es gibt Amerikaner die dich verstehen können. Ihr kränkte uns...)

Anyway, on to The Beautiful. 

New Orleans! 1872! The crinoline is out and bustles are in! Corsets continue to be the worst! The Gilded Age is just getting started (even though the book won’t be published for another year) and Belle Époque is big in France! Imperialism is everything! Ulysses S. Grant is drinking whiskey under his desk! Meanwhile,  seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau has fled her life as a dressmaker at one of the finest ateliers in Paris to join a convent in New Orleans. As you do when shit happens. Luckily, Celine made a friend on the boat ride over - Pippa, another girl fleeing shitty circumstances in favor of life in a convent. Once in New Orleans, both girls are enchanted by the city, and I absolutely have to hand it to Renée Ahdieh for knowing how to capture a setting. The way she describes it, you can practically smell the city of New Orleans. Especially the food. Dear God, the food. Mmm. 

I missed ALA Annual last year when it was held in New Orleans (and by “missed” I mean “couldn’t afford to go”) and just reading this book made me kick myself for not going. 

Back to Celine, though. The whole point of going to live at the Ursuline Convent of New Orleans is for her to lay low and find herself a good husband so she can escape the aforementioned shit that went down in Paris. Pippa has the same goal, though she is way more focused on the “finding a good husband” thing than Celine is. One day, while selling bric-a-brac to raise money for the convent, a strange woman named Odette compliments Celine on her sewing skills. Once she learns that Celine is a dressmaker, Odette immediately commissions Celine to make her a dress for a masquerade ball. Because, of course, it’s Mardi Gras. In fictionland, it’s never not Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Anyway, Odette is high up in some shady New Orleanian society called La Cour des Lions which seems to be full of hyper-beautiful people with all sorts of special skills. La Cour des Lions is led by the mysterious and largely absent Comte de Saint Germain, and is rumored to be embedded pretty deep in local politics and business. While on her way to fit Odette for her dress, Celine, accompanied by Pippa, encounters the comte’s nephew and heir, the absolutely gorgeous Sebastian St. Germain, as he mercilessly beats an unarmed man in an alleyway for reasons that are never made clear. (Seriously, we never do find out for sure why he was beating up some dude in an alley, at least, not in the ARC text). 

Also, I like to imagine that Bastian looks like Taika Waititi.

Also I’d like to imagine he has Taika Waititi’s accent. 

When Celine encounters Bastian again at Odette’s club, they quickly go from being complete strangers to head over heels in love. Because teenagers. But that’s all interrupted when Pippa stumbles upon the body of a girl drained of all her blood. Suddenly the police are involved, led by rival love interest, Michael Grimaldi, who happens to be a former childhood friend of Bastien, and thus, the future love triangle is established.

Also, if you haven’t already guessed by now (I mean, the presence of the Comte de St Germain is a pretty big hint) La Cour des Lions are vampires. Because somehow, even though New Orleans averages a total of 216 sunny days per year, vampires live there.

Maybe Laszlo is onto something, there.

Still, vampires live there, sticking to the indoors and shadows (or managing to daywalk like Colin Robinson or something. Not sure as the book does specify that sunlight does kill these vampires...).  La Cour des Lions are in a centuries long feud with something called the Brotherhood, who are....I’ll let you guess.

Did you guess?

Oh, come on.

You know. 

I’ll give you a hint.

Yes, because warewolves and vampires go together like...warewolves and vampires, honestly why not.

So we’ve got all this going down with Celine smack dab in the middle. Now there’s a serial killer on the loose and they seem to be fascinated with Celine in particular...

So! The Beautiful. It’s a return to the YA vampire genre, so...yay? I dunno, vampires just aren’t my thing. Twilight was huge when I was in high school and college and I tried reading it, but...euch. No. Honestly, outside of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the O.G. Dracula, and What We Do in the Shadows, vampire stories just don’t do anything for me. I never bought into the idea of exchanging a mortal life with sunshine and never committing murder for one in which you can never go out during the day and have to murder people for food. Plus, immortality sounds like it really sucks. Who wants to outlive their whole family? Their friends? Literally everybody you’ve ever known? Immortality means having to watch all of your pets die, over and over again, forever. Yeah, no thanks. Not to mention the fact that, after a few decades without aging, people will start to notice. “Hey, it’s been thirty years, why do you still look like you’re 18 do you have a disease or something?” 

Yeah, I’d rather have my limited time and then be reincarnated. I like that idea way better than being ageless and alive forever and ever. Didn’t any of you read Tuck Everlasting? Winnie made the right choice, you guys.

So while the setting and the writing for The Beautiful are fantastic, as soon as the story brought vampires in, my brain just switched into “eeeehhh” mode. I also have a hard time with romances where the two love interests go from “hey person I just met” to “I love you and will die for you” very quickly. Again, not really my thing. Most of the problems I had with this book just stemmed from my own biases. YA Vampire romances just aren’t my thing. What We Do in the Shadows (movie and TV series!) is more my thing. 

HOWEVER.

Just because something is not my thing, doesn’t mean it’s not your thing. If YA paranormal romances featuring vampires and warewolves running around late 19th century New Orleans sounds like your jam, then in all likelihood, you will really love The Beautiful and I recommend you go and get it when it comes out. Remember: I’m just an idiot with a tumblr account, just because I’m meh on a certain book doesn’t mean it won’t be your new favorite thing ever. I’ll admit, if Renée Ahdieh wrote a New Orleans travel guide, I’d read it in a heartbeat because holy shit she knows how to transport you to a time and place. 

Have at it, YA Paranormal Vampire Romance fans. I’ll be over here, watching What We do in the Shadows. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone fond of YA Paranormal Vampire Romances (see above), fans of historical fiction, anyone looking for something cool set in New Orleans

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anybody not fond of YA Paranormal Vampire Romances.

RELEASE DATE: October 8, 2019

RATING: 3/5

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