Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I've been wanting to read these books for so long.  The covers, the title, the premise, it all just sounded so good.  But as always, I have such a huge stack of TBR books, that I just never got around to it.  At the end of the school year, I decided to check a bunch of books out of the school library, and this was one of them.  It's also the first book I decided to read from that pile from school this summer.  And it was a great choice!  The book was long, and it took me awhile to get through, but not because it didn't suck me in, because even though I only worked at my part time job one day this week, it seemed I was busy.  Cleaning house, visiting family, seeing movies, etc.  But this book, when I picked it up, it was so hard to put it down.  I was about 170 pages from the end when I went up to my room to read before bed last night.  I planned to read until I was done, but did get sleepy after reading all but the last 30 pages.  And I didn't want to fall asleep, so I put it aside and finished it first thing this morning.
The story is told from a male point of view, and sometimes this isn't my favorite way, but it was good this time.  The main character is Ethan Wate.  He lives in a small southern town, a town where everyone knows everyone, and they still barely think they lost the civil war.  He's had these dreams for awhile now, where he must save this girl.  He lost his mother not too long ago, and his father has kind of gone off the deep end, only spending his time in the library/office, writing.  So Ethan is basically being raised, well he is a teenager, by Amma, the housekeeper, a superstitious woman.  A new girl moves into town, Lena Duchannes.  She may be new to town, but her uncle is the town hermit/recluse, and lives in the house all the kids have always imagined being haunted.  As soon as Ethan sees her, he knows, or figures out that Lena is the girl from his dream.  And they have a connection, they can talk to each other in their minds.  Everyone is against their relationship from the start.  The townspeople who shut out anyone new.  Amma, who just says she feels there is only trouble with her.  And even Lena's uncle, Macon Ravenwood, says they will only have trouble if they stay together.  It turns out Lena is a Caster, kind of like a witch, but not exactly.  And when she turns 16, her family has a curse she must deal with.  Ethan is still drawn to her, and soon seems that he is her best protection when other methods fail.
I loved the story.  I loved all the background, all of what you'd call the "mythology" of this type of supernatural being, the Caster.  I like how Ethan has a good friend, Link, who will stick by him, even as the others in town, who used to be "friends" step away the closer he gets to Lena.  A great book, a good ending, and I'm so ready to read on to the next one, Beautiful Darkness, although that may have to wait till later, with all the other books I need to read. *EDIT* I forgot to mention when I first posted this review, that the story somewhat reminds me of Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan.  Not in a bad way, because I love both books.  Just the new to town, the magic, etc.  My review of Unspoken will be posted in August, a month before the book is published.  So you'll have to check that out and see! *EDIT*
Have you read this book or series?  What did you think?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!