After seeing the movie, I can't wait to see the movie. I had a typical problem with reading a book and then watching the movie. I just nit-pick the movie to no end.
Anyway it is narrated by the main guy character, Ethan. He has this really strong southern accent, which is fitting for the movie, seeing as it takes place in South Carolina, but it sometimes gets annoying and hard to understand. He starts it out by talking about these dreams have about this girl, but he can't see her face because it is covered by her hair. He solves his insomnia by running all night. Classy guy.
Anyway, when he gets to school the next day, there is a new girl at school, Lena, that everyone is judgmental about because of her family and they think they are all devil worshipers (this city is a very Catholic one). She is very shy and doesn't seem to let it get to her too much. While driving home, Ethan sees Lena pulled to the side of the road because her car broke down, so after a little convincing, Ethan gets her in his car to drive her home.
One day, Ethan goes to Lena's house and meets her uncle who is kinda scary and Lena tells him not to go in, but he does. Her uncle does some weird things to Ethan which makes him leave the house, but he's pretty resilient and goes back to the house. He goes to give Lena this locket he found on his run from the beginning and when they both touch it they start seeing this vision of this girl and guy.
Anyway, Ethan wakes up and he's back at home and he's a little frustrated so he goes back to Lena's place and all this weird stuff starts to happen and he can never seem to make it back to the house, that's when Lena comes and help and then afterwards she tells him that she has these powers and that she can be claimed by either the Light or the Dark and she only has so many days left until her 16th birthday when she will be claimed.
When Ethan takes Lena on a date to the movies, they decide to try the necklace, locket thing and they see the girl perform a spell to bring back her dead lover and in doing so she turned dark. You find out later that the spell was forbidden and created a curse on the women on Lena’s family that they will turn dark.
Her family has this harvest dinner thing and Lena's cousin, Ridley, who turned dark on her 16th birthday comes to Ethan's school and takes him to Lena's place.
She has some power over him and he's not able to really make his own choices. Well Lena gets mad and loses control and unleashes some power on Ridley telling her to "leave her boyfriend alone.”
From this point on, Ethan and Lena are mainly going through a struggle to keep her family and his (mainly his mother’s friend Amma, as his father is not really in the picture) from trying to separate them. When they do get torn apart from her family, Ethan goes to her house and Lena breaks this spell that the family has to keep her from him. Then Ethan goes to Amma and asks for her help. Turns out Amma is part of a group of people that keep the spells from the casters secret and hidden. There is this one book that will tell Lena about this curse that Ridley told her about that will make her go dark.
For the next several months, Ethan takes Lena to this place so that she can figure out what’s going on. Towards her birthday she finds out to break this curse she has to use the forbidden spell to take the life of her lover. By learning this she tries to distance herself from Ethan and when she can’t get him to leave she pretty much erases his memories of him.
There is this big civil war reenactment that the high school players do and just joking around Ethan and his friend Link decide to “fake” kill each other. Well Ridley gave Link a bullet and convinced him to pretty much kill his best friend and that this will ultimately bring Lena to turn dark. So Lena feels that something is wrong when Ethan is shot and runs to the battlefield where it turns out to be her uncle, Macon, not Ethan. She end up causing Ridley to run and kills her mom’s evil spirit (that was pretty much her mom) when she hides the moon so that she can’t be claimed by either the light or the dark, that she chooses for herself.
A few months go by and Ethan goes to see Ammy at the Library to tell her he’s off to look at some colleges and bumps into Lena, who he doesn't remember or know anything about anymore and Lena doesn't say anything to him except good luck. When Ethan passes the sign of the town he sees a scorch mark and remembers Lena. The movie ends with him yelling her name and her lifting her eyes to see that one eye is dark and the other is normal.
