Welcome back to the tenth month of Calendar Girls! It’s a monthly blog event co-hosted by Flavia and myself, and designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers. Calendar Girls was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl, (because I’m an oldies fanatic. 😛) For more information, click here!
October’s Theme:
Best Paranormal Novel
I… don’t read paranormal. I know. It’s bad, especially since I’m a co-host of this event (and I make the polls that give the theme options. Hahaha!) But I’ve had some bad experiences with some pretty bad paranormal books. So, I don’t usually read them and I was super worried I wouldn’t be able to find a single book, but I found one. Alright. I might be cheating a little bit, since it’s probably more urban fantasy than paranormal, but meh. They kind of overlap, yeah? So without further ado… *drum roll*
BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
I read this WELL before I became a book blogger. I really quite enjoyed it even though I’m not big on romance and it’s different from a lot of the YA out there because it’s told from Ethan’s point of view instead of Lena’s. (Why does YA always have to be told from the perspective of the woman? I dunno.) But I remember really enjoying this story.
Granted, I really liked it because of the severe dip into Southern culture and beliefs and stigma. There’s so much judgment and hypocrisy to the characters in this book that I sometimes couldn’t help myself but laugh. But, let’s be honest, it’s not about the townsfolk. It’s about Ethan and Lena. And while this may be a paranormal story with magic and supernatural creatures, it’s also a love story (a love story I believed and actually enjoyed. I know! Shocking!) So, I highly recommend you all read this book (and seriously read it, don’t watch the movie. Movie was GARBAGE!) Hee hee! :p
Have you read Beautiful Creatures yet?
If you haven’t, you should!
Calendar Girls’ picks for Best Paranormal Novel!
Flavia – Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite
Katie – Dracula by Bram Stoker
Alex – Our Dark Duet by V.E. Schwab
Shanah – A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Adrienne – The Missing by Jerico Lenk
Dawlyn & Krista – The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Thai – Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Milana & Alex – October Daye by Seanan McGuire
Melanie Noell Bernard 
Sooooo….bad news: I saw the movie…haha. And while it intrigued me, I wasn’t crazy about it…which I think is why I kind of stayed away from this series afterward. BUT, since you picked it for this month’s theme, I now kind of have to give it a try sometime 😉
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BAHAHAHA! That movie was GARBAGE! I just watched it on Netflix recently and no way is it an accurate representation of the book. The pacing was off. The scenes were disjointed. The book is WAY better and much fuller than the movie. Trust me. 🙂
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Yeahhhhhh it was HORRID.
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I see your point about YA more often than not being narrated by the female (especially YA romances) and counter with some of the really good YA I’ve read from at least partially male POVs:
Anything by Rick Riordan
The Love Interest
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series
Cinda Williams Chima’s Heir Chronicles
Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series and his stand-alone Airman
The Farsala Trilogy
The Maze Runner Series
And obviously the granddaddy of them all: Harry Potter
I avoided your pick for a long time and I don’t even know why. Now that I know it has Southern culture though I want to read it because I am kind of fascinated with some aspects of Southern culture.
Here’s my post: http://twobirds1blog.blogspot.ca/2017/10/calendar-girls-oct-2017-best-paranormal.html
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hahaha, it’s so funny. most posts i checked out by now say, that they don’t read paranormal books haha 😀
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Hahahahaha! Paranormal is a bit of an odd genre. It’s so close to urban fantasy and there, honestly, are some REALLY bad paranormal books out there (and movies. >.>) So, I can understand this aversion towards the genre as a whole.
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i guess i’ll have to read more of it to see if it’s something for me
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Probably. I know some people love it.
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https://littleblindbookfinds.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/best-paranormal-novel/
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Ahhh the movie cringes but I do like the book! And I cheated a little too! I picked a slightly more urban fantasy vs paranormal 😉
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Well, hi there! 😀 You’re new this month, yes? Welcome to Calendar Girls! I will add your post to the list and I added you to the Twitter Group, too. 🙂
And I know the feeling. Urban fantasy and paranormal are quite similar. So it can be difficult to really discern them and I think it’s more a matter of preference than anything else, you know? :p goes to check out your choice
P.s. There’s a typo in the link to your blog on your WordPress front page. Eep!
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Goodness was that movie terrible?!?! YESSS! but I also enjoyed the books, never quite finished reading the series but I came very close to so yea lol. The SOuther touch was also what kept me drawn in & no, we def don’t get very many male protogs anymore so it is refreshing when we do get a good one such as Ethan. Great pick! 🙂
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Thank you! And I didn’t finish it either. I started book four and just couldn’t handle where it was going.
1-3 were great, but four kind of just fell off the deep end and I never got back to finishing it. shrug
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That sounds about right where I left off 😂😂😂 & for the same reason. Out of sight out of mind 🤷🏻♀️
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