YA Weekend Audio: The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Mogsy’s Rating (Overall): 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Series: Book 1 of The Beautiful
Publisher: Listening Library (October 8, 2019)
Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Narrator: Lauren Ezzo
While I’m no stranger to Renée Ahdieh’s work, having read The Wrath and the Dawn and Flame in the Mist, neither book enticed enough to pick up the rest of the series, so when I first heard about her new novel The Beautiful— a vampire book, no less—I was understandably skeptical. But I guess as they say, third time’s a charm. I was a little nervous going into it, considering how early reviews were mixed, but I ultimately enjoyed it quite a lot.
The Beautiful takes us to 1872 New Orleans, where we meet our protagonist Celine Rousseau, who is newly arrived from Paris. Forced to flee Europe because of a secret in her past, Celine has come to live in the Ursuline convent along with half a dozen other girls taken in by the strict Mother Superior. But life among the nuns has not softened Celine’s spirit or her natural curiosity, which leads her to explore the historical and cultural wonders of New Orleans. She soon catches the attention of Sébastien, the nephew and scion to one of the most powerful men in the city, Count Nicodemus Saint Germain. Sébastien is the leader of his own underground club, which operates out of their glitzy hideout La Cour des Lions, and it isn’t long before Celine finds herself deeply involved in their activities.
But at night, the streets of New Orleans are not the safest place to be. A killer has been terrorizing the city, leaving behind corpses completely drained of blood. When one of the victims, a girl from the Ursuline convent, is found inside La Cours des Lions, Celine has reason to suspect the club charming and glamorous proprietor, even as she finds herself falling for him. Sébastien is handsome and beguiling, but she also can’t deny there’s a darkness in him that she can’t figure out. And when the latest murder brings the attention of the city police down on them all, the investigation threatens to expose Celine’s own terrible past.
When it boils down to it, The Beautiful is pretty derivative as far as vampire fiction goes—for example, even now I can’t say for sure why this story had to be a historical fiction set in New Orleans, other than the obvious reason of being a call back to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Whether this or other references are intended to be a homage to Rice or other authors, Ahdieh was clearly influenced by popular vampire fiction. She borrows heavily from the greats, employing tropes that I think will be familiar with many readers.
But I started seeing the book from another perspective once I stopped thinking of it as a vampire book, but instead began considering it as a mystery. In fact, you could probably do away with the vampire aspect and the story would have still been as provocative and intriguing—bad news for vampire aficionados, perhaps, but perfectly fine for a historical mystery fan like myself. The plot is well-paced, capturing a certain Victorian gothic vibe. Sprinkled in is also a good dose of forbidden romance, which wasn’t the most prominent theme in the book, but it did help add some zing to the mystery narrative whenever it threatened to grow stale.
Best of all, for the first time I noticed that the author has improved her writing and mostly refrained from using overly flowery descriptions and purple prose. As this was a huge problem for me in both The Wrath and the Dawn and Flame in the Mist, I was happy to see Ahdieh is finally learning to lay off the melodrama and overwrought metaphors. Of course, there are still some issues, like insufficient world-building and the conspicuous absence of adults, but to be fair, I feel those are problems in YA as a whole and not particular to The Beautiful. Seriously, who’s going to believe the New Orleans police force is going to put a teenager at the head of one of their biggest murder cases of the century? We all know why Michael is young and hot, and it certainly isn’t because he’s a brilliant detective.
Unlike a lot of YA these days though, The Beautiful kept me engaged from beginning to end. I think it’s my favorite book by Renée Ahdieh to date, and upon finishing it, I actually felt motivated enough to want to continue with the series, and not just because the open ending. I’ll be watching for the sequel.
Audiobook Comments: The audio version of The Beautiful was narrated expressively by Lauren Ezzo, whose varied accents and voices conjured up the time period and the people and places described in the book. I didn’t care for a couple of her male character voices, which sounded awkward and rough like she was talking around a mouthful of rocks, but thankfully those instances were few and far between. I would recommend this audiobook overall.
The BiblioSanctum 
Oh I’m so excited to read this! I can’t wait to read it, but I might go with the physical copy if the male voices sound so awkward haha!
Great review!
(www.evelynreads.com)
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Haha, don’t get me wrong, the audio wasn’t bad, but yeah there were some distractions.
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The Victorian gothic vibe you mention sounds very interesting – besides the vampires of course… 😉
Thanks for sharing!
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You’re welcome! Just don’t expect too much from the vampires, and you should be fine 😀
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YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! I am so happy you loved it Mogsy!!! I have read (not listened to) The Beautiful and as you said this is more a mystery (so far) than a vampire story! I’ve loved it so much that we are hosting a 8 days challenge on IG (with another bookstagrammer) and that we have a fanfic planned the last two days of this month 🙂
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Yeah, don’t think of it as a vampire romance because I think that’s where a lot of disappointment comes from! As a gothic historical mystery though, I kinda enjoyed it 🙂
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Wonderful review, Mogsy! While deritative and the vampire elements weren’t as impressive as you wish it could have been, this still sounds like a step in the right direction, especially when you noticed that her writing style really improved compared to her previous YA titles!
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Yes, I was most impressed with the writing! I love to see improvement and for me that goes a long way 😀
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I’m so happy to read this review! Literally everyone seems to be disappointed with it. I guess adjusting your expectations is a good way to go into it.
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Yeah, I’m a bit surprised at all the negative reviews! I guess staying away from reading anything about this book before I started helped a bit, because I wanted to go in with a clean slate. It helped me make adjustments to my expectations.
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I can see why you enjoyed it when reframed through the lens of a mystery novel! I do think that perhaps if this had been marketed more along the lines of a supernatural mystery instead of vampire romance, I wouldn’t have gotten quite so hung up on the frustrating world building (or lack thereof). Good review!
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For sure, had I gone in gung ho for the vampire romance I would have been severely disappointed!
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I do not think I have ever tried Ezzzo, but sounds good
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I think it was my first time listening to her as well. I liked her!
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Third time the charm indeed, and I think it is a promising sign when an author learns from his/her previous mistakes – I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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For sure, and that counts a lot with me! Her previous books were almost unbearable because of the purple prose so I was so glad to see that wasn’t an issue here.
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Glad to hear this was a winner! I believe this is the featured book in one of the book boxes I’ll be reviewing this month!
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Nice, I can’t wait to hear what you think!
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I’ve seen such mixed reviews that I’m glad you really narrowed down what you liked about the book and honestly, I do think it will work for me. I thought “The Beautiful” was an adult book though. Not that it matters because I don’t get too hung up on those classifications. I think I’ll like the historical mystery part and I’m reading “The Doll Factory” right now and apparently got it’s synopsis confused with something else in my head because it’s not what I expected – it’s a historical mystery as well. Maybe you should check it out. Great review!
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Yeah, the reviews for this one seem to be all over the place! And yeah, Beautiful is a YA book – almost to a painful degree, lol. It’s pretty laughable that you have a teenager as the lead detective/head policeman, for example. I really hope the author’s not trying for a love triangle there!
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Nice review! This is one of my anticipated reads for the fall! I just ordered my copy today!
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I loved this book! I agree that you have to let go of the vampire expectation to have a better reading experience.
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VAMPIRES—no need to say more, adding this to my TBR immediately. 😀
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You know, this one didn’t work as well for me as I’d hoped and maybe it all boils down to expectations because I was literally so happy to have a vampire novel – set in New Orleans. I think the way you’ve liked it to historical mystery is very fitting – I wish I’d seen this review before I picked it up because I would have had a different idea of what was to come.
Not a bad book by any means but just not what I wanted at the time.
Lynn 😀
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