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A review by audreychamaine
Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon
3.0
The night Renee Winters turned 16, she found her parents dead in the redwood forest. She soon finds herself with her estranged, wealthy grandfather as a guardian, and is being sent to a boarding school in Maine, far away from her California home. When Renee arrives, she’s drawn to a handsome loner named Dante. She’s also confused by the school’s strange rules, including no lights other than candlelight at night, and the odd courses she has to take. Renee become drawn into the mystery surrounding a death the previous year, and begins to suspect that there may be more to Gottfried Academy than meets the eye.
Dead Beautiful is a bit like a mix of Twilight, Harry Potter, House of Night and Evernight. There’s nothing original about the story, and some elements feel like they’ve been directly lifted from other books (Dante is paired with Renee as a lab partner, and can’t kiss her because he’s afraid that he’ll hurt her). Aside from being so similar to other popular YA works, Dead Beautiful does a good job at drawing in the reader, and presenting an intriguing school atmosphere. There’s quite a bit of reference to philosophy and Cartesian thought, and Woon makes Latin seem like something cool to study. The mystery and ending aren’t too difficult to figure out along the way, but it was enjoyable reading how everything would play out. Fans of Twilight will probably enjoy this book, and I think it ranks above many other Twilight-read-alikes. Overall, Dead Beautiful was an enjoyable book, with the promise of sequels to come.
Dead Beautiful is a bit like a mix of Twilight, Harry Potter, House of Night and Evernight. There’s nothing original about the story, and some elements feel like they’ve been directly lifted from other books (Dante is paired with Renee as a lab partner, and can’t kiss her because he’s afraid that he’ll hurt her). Aside from being so similar to other popular YA works, Dead Beautiful does a good job at drawing in the reader, and presenting an intriguing school atmosphere. There’s quite a bit of reference to philosophy and Cartesian thought, and Woon makes Latin seem like something cool to study. The mystery and ending aren’t too difficult to figure out along the way, but it was enjoyable reading how everything would play out. Fans of Twilight will probably enjoy this book, and I think it ranks above many other Twilight-read-alikes. Overall, Dead Beautiful was an enjoyable book, with the promise of sequels to come.