Krista Reviews: Yvonne Woon's - "Dead Beautiful"

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.

Hardcover, UK, 456 pages Published May 1st 2011 by Usborne (first published September 21st 2010)

There was very little that I did not love about this book.

After Renee loses her parents (whom she discovered dead), her grandfather sends her off, across the country, to a very unusual school. She is skeptical about the things she sees going on at the school, but makes friends easily. Dante is the brooding, hot mysterious guy. They have a deep attraction to each other. The romantic aspect is a little mushy, but I found it cute all the same.

Renee finds that she has a keen ability to locate dead things and there is a curse on the school and students have been known to die there. Not to mention the mysterious Latin classes and student monitors that are up to something. Even the handsome and mysterious Dante has a deep attraction to her that he has never felt for anyone before.

I hate comparing books to other books, I always try to judge each writer and story on it’s own merits. But guess what this is my first time that yes I am going to compare this book to the notorious Twilight. There is a scene in this story, in the forest during which I pictured Bella and Edward. For one page it was almost word for word the same scene in Twilight when Bella tells Edward she knows what he is. Otherwise the idea behind this particular story was very unique, I found it highly intriguing and loved it.

There was not a boring moment in this story. The unraveling of the plot and the pacing is what kept me hooked. I thought there was a great mixture of characters. I liked the story line and the mystery behind what is happening at the school and her timing in finding out the events leading up to the end was perfect. Even though I was not a huge fan of the mushy the romance factor, it did not over power any of the main plot and events leading to the ending.

The story is put together very well. I know that I should have been able to see what was coming at the end, but I really didn’t see it. The unraveling of the plot and the growing suspense kept me sucked into the story and I hated having to put it down.