Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Review: Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1) by Yvonne Woon


Title: Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1)
Author: Yvonne Woon
Published: September 21st 2010 by Hyperion Book CH

Book Description:

On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Renée Winters was still an ordinary girl. She spent her summers at the beach, had the perfect best friend, and had just started dating the cutest guy at school. No one she'd ever known had died. But all that changes when she finds her parents dead in the Redwood Forest, in what appears to be a strange double murder.

After the funeral Renée’s wealthy grandfather sends her to Gottfried Academy, a remote and mysterious boarding school in Maine, where she finds herself studying subjects like Philosophy, Latin, and the “Crude Sciences.”

It’s there that she meets Dante Berlin, a handsome and elusive boy to whom she feels inexplicably drawn. As they grow closer, unexplainable things begin to happen, but Renée can’t stop herself from falling in love. It’s only when she discovers a dark tragedy in Gottfried’s past that she begins to wonder if the Academy is everything it seems.

Little does she know, Dante is the one hiding a dangerous secret, one that has him fearing for her life.

Dead Beautiful is both a compelling romance and thought-provoking read, bringing shocking new meaning to life, death, love, and the nature of the soul.


My Thoughts:


Are you willing to give up your soul to save the person you love?

            The book mostly talks about the dead and I really loved the concept of Latin being the “Language of the Dead”. When I first started reading this, it hooked me and I enjoyed reading it, but the pacing started to drag during the middle parts. A lot of times I had to put this down and it took me a few days to finish the entire book.
            Renee’s parents died on the day of her sixteenth birthday, and what’s worse is that she’s the one who found their bodies. She was placed under her grandfather’s care and was sent to Gottfried Academy where she meets gorgeous Dante Berlin and makes a few friends.
            Dead Beautiful almost reminded me of Twilight where girl meets hot, brooding, mysterious, almost too-perfect guy and she instantly falls for him. He doesn’t eat, sleep, his hands are always cold and he has his own dark secrets that she oh so wants to figure out. Familiar?
            The mystery elements kept me thinking, although I easily figured out some of them since it’s already too obvious, and it’s a bit annoying that Renee seems too slow and wasn’t able to catch on even though the facts were already laid out in front of her. Ugh.
             I enjoyed reading about the history of the undead and the romantic scenes though. Everything gets really interesting when Renee finally discovers the truth, but the ending just seems rushed.
Overall it was an okay read. Not bad, and not awesome.

I give this book three whales.








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