The Damned (The Beautiful Quartet) Hardcover – July 7, 2020

Renee Ahdieh’s The Damned was one of my most anticipated releases for this year. You all know how much I love my vampires. The Beautiful was definitely one of my favorite reads last year despite most reviews touting that there weren’t enough vampires. The Damned certainly delivered on a lot of levels and it has heedlessly left me craving for more!The story starts off following Sebastian, as we all know, he was turned into a vampire to save his life at Celine’s request. In return she gave up all her memories of him, of them. Sebastian isn’t taking to the vampire life all that well. He’s angry a lot and misses Celine, but his uncle, Nicodemus forbids him from seeing her.Meanwhile, Celine is trying to adapt to her life after being attacked by a serial killer and dealing with losing the last few weeks or so of her memory. Michael Grimaldi, the detective she had numerous encounters with last time around has been a constant companion for her. He’s nearly always at her side and trying to look out for her. Yet Celine knows she’s missing something, not just from her memories either and though she enjoys Michael’s companionship, she still finds herself looking for that something. Every now and then she’s plagued with strange visions that might be her memories trying to come back but they are always of unexplainable things.Things start to get really exciting in this one, or they are at least being set up for something big! My initial thought was that this was supposed to be a duology, but with everything that was being set up and everything that happened and has yet to happen, this has to be a trilogy at the very least! We get to be inside so many characters’ points of view, not enough to make you confused, but a good balance that lets you see what is going down in New Orleans. Emilie, Sebastian’s long-not-so-dead sister is back, as we learned at the end of The Beautiful and she has her own agenda for where her brother is concerned. It would seem that their uncle broke a treaty by bringing a new vampire into New Orleans, so war is imminent.On a path that is somewhat self-destructive, Sebastian sets out on a personal quest, one that in turn involves Celine, the girl he has been trying to stay far away from. Celine in turn will be making her own discoveries on this quest and yet all the while, we the readers know that something is amiss and OMG I AM DYING to know what is going on and what all these devious characters are plotting!I was a bit sad that there wasn’t enough Celine and Sebastian moments, they spend a great deal apart while lost in their own battles, but eventually they come together again in ways you wouldn’t expect. Renee does let the romance between them shine again in tiny stolen moments, so the book wasn’t completely without its romantic interludes.While you won’t find vampires jam-packed in this story, there is a thicker plot being woven into this overall arc. Not just a brewing war, but something else, something bigger than we all expected. By the end of the book, we still don’t exactly know what that is, but my oh my, there were some exceedingly interesting developments by the end of this one! My jaw was dropping page after page in the grand finale and the epilogue only continued to leave me baffled and trying to connect the pieces.Needless to say, this is not a duology!The Damned defies the word surprising by being explosive with all the jaw-dropping revelations. Surprising sounds too little for all the shocking moments that this book revealed. I was scouring the internet after finishing this looking for any word of third book because after that ending, I would realllllly hate to see things left unresolved like many other amazing series. If you like your vampire variety books, then you will love this one just as much as I did! I’ll again stress that though this was an amazing vampire read—coming from a vampire reader of the early days—the vampires are not there 24/7. There’s much more to vampire novels than just them all the time. In fact, you’ll be seeing other delightful and not so delightful creatures in this one. The Damned pretty much has it all!Overall Rating 4.5/5

Initial ThoughtsI was SO excited to read this book. I really enjoyed The Beautiful and when Penguin Teen offered me the chance to review this one early, I was like YES, PLEASE!Some Things I LikedDifferent POV. I just loved that Bastien was the first person POV in this book and I really loved how that matched the title. Celine was “the beautiful” and the first person POV in the first book, and Bastien is now “damned” so he’s the main POV in this book. I also liked that we had chapters that followed other characters throughout the story.BAHHH the love story. Ok, BAHHH is not exactly an articulate way to describe something. But, it’s me basically word vomiting all over this post because I loved it so much. Celine and Bastien are just so perfect and so stubborn and they made for such a great romance read.Poor Michael. Yes, I list this in things I liked. Michael is ok but, Bastien > Michael all day every day. I hope Michael finds a nice lady in the next book, not Celine. Celine is spoken for. But, I do feel bad for him.ODETTE – yes, all caps for Odette and how much I loved her as a character. She deserves a series all to herself. She’s so tragic and self-loathing and I love her for it. Where’s her person? Renée Ahdieh, please give Odette a love story!Series ValueIf there is not another book in this series, I do not know what I will do. The ending was so ridiculously open-ended, there can’t not be more. However, I really like the poetry of the names as just “The Beautiful” and “The Damned” – what would Renée Ahdieh even call the next book?Final ThoughtsI liked The Beautiful but I loved The Damned. The twists, the POVs, Bastien as the primary narrator. The pages literally oozed with drama and I can’t wait for more. Although more is unconfirmed, I will continue to wish for more!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Recommendations for Further ReadingThe Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh – if you liked the dramatic writing style and the rich descriptions, try Renée’s other series.A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – if you liked the supernatural elements of The Beautiful and the various types of beings described, definitely give The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness a read.

I binged this book immediately after reading the first, and while I was hooked on Sebastian and Celine, it started to become slightly overwhelming with the out there paranormal and I kind of wanted more of them, but got more of the overall story of all things against them. I may try the third book, but by the end of this one, I kind of lost the urge to find out what happens. The characters are amazingly developed, and once again the fire between Sebastian and Celine was palpable, but I just lost my addiction through this one. Still, a great read!

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Después de que me gustó mucho el primer libro, estaba deseando que llegue este. Al final de «The Beautiful» Bastien se convierte en vampiro y Celine pierde todos sus recuerdos de él.Así que eso prometió convertirse en un libro interesante.Bueno, sorprendentemente, fue cualquier cosa menos.Toda la acumulación, sabia historia y romance, no fue a ninguna parte. Esperaba el desarrollo de relaciones y mucho tiempo Celine/Bastien. Lamentablemente Celine estuvo muy ausente en este libro. Parecía más como un personaje secundario.Cuando finalmente apareció e interactuó con Bastien, fue un punto culminante. Pero esos momentos quedaron libres y en realidad no hicieron avanzar su relación.

‘There is no such path. And I am no one’s hero. So I choose the way of destruction.’Impossibly I think I actually adored this book even more than the first in the series. Given the situation that our central characters were left within there was perhaps less romance than in ‘The Beautiful’ but what we got instead – details that I’d been craving of all things supernatural! – made up for this. Naturally a lot of these details were about vampires and how they worked within this world but there was more detail on other supernatural beings too like the Brotherhood (although yes, I will say that I’d love to know more about their history still) and much to my delight the fey. As someone who has absolutely adored books featuring them in the past the inclusion of them thrilled me to no end.Character wise I got to discover a lot more about the supporting characters within this novel and I simply adored that. Up until this point Jae was just in the background but now I find him fascinating. I’d love to learn even more about his past! Snippets of the other vampires’ histories were revealed too as well as little bits of information about the other individuals surrounding both Celine and Sébastien. Odette is someone who I continue to adore; the other members of Sébastien’s family became more defined (although I would be thrilled to learn even more, especially about Boone who is probably the least explored as of now). The Grimaldis fascinated me although I would say that I’d love to see more of them too. And I was happy to see Pippa continuing to make an appearance.When it comes to Celine there were an incredible amount of revelations to uncover about her within this novel and I honestly did not see them coming. And yes I will confess I fell for Sébastien even more deeply. How can anybody resist a character like him? Charming, dangerous, beautiful and alluring.The writing was just as exquisite as it was within book one but differed slightly in the way that it branched out to include more points of view. Although they’d been there before they were more frequent and varied within this book – helping to cast deeper light on different characters and I really did enjoy this. Due to circumstances the romance was less present but when it was on the page it was strong, and sizzling, as ever. Plus, unless it was just me, I have a feeling that there’s another romantic paring planned for the future. Hints are there, at any rate.There were moments that caught me off guard, adventures in unexpected places, tension, twists and so much danger throughout. I honestly did absolutely adore this book and can’t wait to see where on earth book three ventures. One moment did, admittedly, leave me slightly uncertain and question whether it was out of character or not for an individual. As it involved an off page conversation – and could be explained with some more glimpses of the character’s past perhaps – I’m hoping everything will become clear later on in the series.So overall I absolutely recommend this book! I honestly could quite happily pick it up again to re-read straight away. The direction that this series is heading in thrills me; it’s as deadly yet alluring as ever. Although I do have to say ‘how dare you!’ about one moment! Ah that devastated me. Although naturally I can’t say anymore than that due to the spoiler risk. Bring on book three already!

I'm not sure much happened in this book until it hit about 65% and even if it did, I'm not really sure I cared for it. The characters are disappointing, and I felt like this book was worse than the previous one, that I'd loved. Thank God for Bastien though. He's a gem.

I absolutely loved everything about this book . I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a good vampire story . I simply couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end .