Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh returns with the second installment of her new sumptuous, sultry and romantic series, The Beautiful.Following the events of The Beautiful, Sébastien Saint Germain is now cursed and forever changed. The treaty between the Fallen and the Brotherhood has been broken, and war between the immortals seems imminent. The price of loving Celine was costly. But Celine has also paid a high price for loving Bastien.

Still recovering from injuries sustained during a night she can’t quite remember, her dreams are troubled. And she doesn’t know she has inadvertently set into motion a chain of events that could lead to her demise and unveil a truth about herself she’s not quite ready to learn.

Forces hiding in the shadows have been patiently waiting for this moment for centuries. And just as Bastien and Celine begin to uncover the danger around them, they learn their love could tear them apart.

Review

4 stars

It had every ingredient to be amazing and impressive character growth yet …there was something missing for me to give it more than 4 stars.

Months ago, when I had finished The Beautiful, I collaborated with Julia from @acourtofwordsandpages and in one of our posts, I wrote my own version or fanfic for the sequel.

You can find it here:

https://bewareofthereader.com/when-two-readers-fall-in-love-with-a-book-and-write-a-fanfic-the-beautiful-by-renee-ahdieh-fanfic-part-2-spoiler-ahead/

Now, after having finished The damned….I was quite close!

With the Damned, you will find a completely different world from The Beautiful.

The supernatural creatures are now known from the reader and we don’t have the mystery we had in book one. This weakened the tension and suspense we had in book one that had me on the edge of my seat all the time!

Another difference, the book won’t happen only in New Orleans but also …elsewhere. That made me miss the unique and mysterious atmosphere of the New Orleans. I liked the world building but it stole some of the “mood” I found in the Beautiful.

What you’ll find here is character’s growth. Less fire from them, more restraint as they’ve been marked by life.

If it was the logical choice seeing the events they went through and if I usually love seeing these changes in characters, I missed Céline ‘s fire. In the first book, she was bold, independent, sassy, curious.

She is still independent but I found that her sassiness was more subdued. Yes I understood that her ordeal and her not remembering altered her character but … I missed her fire.

Céline indeed had a secret and if I was not totally right in my fanfic, I was not so far from the truth.

Bastien changed tremendously and I dare say that he changed for the better.

Not because he is now a vampire but rather because he acts less like a spoiled child. He reflects on his life and past actions. He’ll struggle with what’s happened to him as he never wanted to become a monster. But in the end, what makes a monster?

He is more mature.

Another thing I missed was the tension between Céline and Bastien, the intensity and the mystery.  There is some tension but this is less “cat and mouse” game than in the first book.

I would say that this was an enjoyable read, with many creative elements and logical choices but that didn’t engross me like the Beautiful did.

Recommend it? Yes if you have read the Beautiful! You might even love it more than I did.

Have you read it?

Thanks for reading!

Sophie