Book: Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon

Published by Disney Press

Borrowed from the library, read as an e-book (267 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal

Find out more: Goodreads~Barnes And Noble~Amazon~Yvonne Woon

Goodreads.com Summary: 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.

Dead Beautiful is one of the more interesting paranormal books I’ve read.  I really like her twist on the Undead, and the creepiness of Gottfried Academy and what they teach adds to that.

So, I though that teaching things like philosophy and Latin was really strange, even for a boarding school.  I mean, I get some high schools may teach some random stuff, depending on where you are, and which school you go to, but focusing on things like Latin, Crude Sciences and philosophy was just too random.  Of course, it all makes sense at the end, and there is a reason for why they focus on what they do.

There are a lot of little mysteries throughout the book, and they actually get wrapped up (for the most part).  I liked that I didn’t know what was going on for a lot of the book, but at the same time, we learn so much about what’s going on towards the end, which was a little annoying, because it did feel like it came out of nowhere.

The characters were okay, but Renee living with her grandfather didn’t seem right.  I mean, he hasn’t seen her or talked to her in years, and all of a sudden, he shows up to take care of her because he’s her legal guardian?  If her parents didn’t get along with him, to the point that they had a fight, and he all but disappeared, why wouldn’t they change their will?  Of course, this makes sense later in the novel, but it’s still a little strange.  It is a shame we don’t meet Renee’s parents, or what her life with them was like before they died.  The characters were on the boring side, and didn’t really stand out.  They were pretty predictable.

I loved the setting of Gottfried Academy, though, and it seems like such a pretty yet creepy place.  It works really well for the plot, and just makes everything going on so much more creepy.

Dead Beautiful is okay, and yet is intriguing- I’m just interested enough to read the sequel, but not so interested that I need to read it immediately.  It gets a 2 out of 5.