The Beautiful Series by Renée Ahdieh

Last week, I finished reading The Beautiful series by Renée Ahdieh. This paranormal fantasy is about Celine Rousseau, a seventeen-year-old dressmaker who flees from France to New Orleans in the winter of 1872. Taken in by the Ursuline Convent, she falls in love with the city and soon meets Sébastien Saint Germain, an mysterious young man who is the leader of La Cour des Lions. When one of the girls from the convent is murdered, she is suspicious of Bastien despite her attraction to him. As a serial killer continues to leave a trail of bodies, Celine decides to uncover the truth even if it means putting herself in danger. After a devastating turn of events at the end of The Beautiful, Celine and Bastien must find their way back to each other in The Ruined and more is revealed about the supernatural world. While the first two books focus on Celine and Bastien's story, the third book, The Righteous, focuses on the romance between Celine's friend, Pippa Montrose, and Bastien's friend, Arjun Desai. The final book, The Ruined, brings everything together when Celine and Bastien find themselves on opposite sides of a war that has been fought for ages.

I wanted to love this series, I really truly did, and the first three books were amazing, but I found myself extremely disappointed by the final book. While this series was suspenseful, with wonderful world-building, and I loved Celine and Bastien's romance, I feel like Celine was extremely out of character in The Ruined and the ending was not what I expected. I can't say a whole lot more without spoiling what happens in the series, but what intrigued me the most about the series, besides the romance, was the murder mystery at the core of the first book. It took a lot of twists and turns and the cliffhanger at the end left me wanting more and that's why I continued reading the series. I couldn't resist finishing the series even when I started suspecting that the plot might go in a direction I didn't like during the third book. My favorite characters ended up being Bastien, Pippa, and Arjun because they showed the most growth through the series and it was a joy when the story's focus was on them. On the other hand, I felt like the villain was interesting in the first two books but became annoying by the end. Given my mixed feelings about this series, especially because it's a fantasy series without a happy ending, it's not my first choice as a recommendation.