Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1) by Yvonne Woon

 By: Unknown    4:28 PM  Dead Beautiful, two stars, Yvonne Woon   1 comment

2 Stars

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. 

I  was going to review Sweet Evil. Then I remembered my friend wanted to try and review it. So, I was like," Sure. I'll find another book." And then I was going to review The Selection. But then, I found this book in my browse through Good Reads. And I was like, "Oh... I remember this book! I read it like a year ago!" So now I'm trying to see if I can remember it enough to write a review about it.

Let's see what I can remember... It was bad. And a copy cat. The overall story was like Twilight. With a few Mean Girls moments. And Disappearing Parent Syndrome. And some of Fallen.

 Renee Winters's parents get murdered (DPS- check), and she is sent to some private school. She meets a guy, falls magically in love with him, and finds out he's a zombie.

Yep. A zombie. What zombie do you know that's not rotting? Apparently, Dante isn't the only one. Most of the  school is filled with zombies. And the people taking some sort of Latin class are the zombies. Latin. I thought zombies had no brain power except for eating and walking. Latin. **Snort.

There was some screwed up mythology that I can't remember, but it was something like bury a body six feet under ground or burn it. Why? Because if you don't its going to come back to life. And the zombies only live for a number of years.

If a zombie finds his true love? Mate? I don't know- something, and kisses them, then they won't be a zombie anymore and the person that they kissed will be. So that was the reason Renee and Dante couldn't kiss. Fallen moment- check.

And apparently some people in the school take Latin, but not the special Latin. So Renee pretends to not know the answers of some stuff to spend time with Dante. Mean Girls- check.

Twilight moments are scattered throughout the series. There was that scene when Edward- I mean Dante- does something in Science class correctly, and Bella- totally meant Renee- checks it, and it turns out he's right. That's just one of the Twilight parts. (Others being a girl meeting a guy a lot older than her and "sparks" that fly when they touch).

Renee was an unlikable main character. She made stupid decisions  One of which was to forget that she has a boyfriend and crush on Dante. She's a flat character and has no character development at all over the story. And she was very narcissistic.

Dante- well, I can't remember Dante. I think he was creepy and stalkerish. Or maybe my mind has screwed up in remembering wrong.

Renee's friends weren't actually friends as more of two people that try (and fail) to make Renee seem likable.

The romance was insta-love, as I've already pointed out. Way too much "I'd rather die than be without you!"

The writing was all tell, not show. Some word choices and sentences were weird.

The foreshadowing was well done, even though it was very predictable. Some parts surprised me, though. This is the only reason I didn't give Dead Beautiful one star.

If you want to be annoyed, then pick this book up. If not, good for you. Go the other direction.

Extra long review for not being on for almost a week!