Review: Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon

Dead Beautiful 
by Yvonne Woon
Release Date: September 21, 2010
Published by: Hyperion Books CH
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I really, really want to talk about what the mystery is, but I can’t because then I’d reveal the big realization that Renee Winters has about 2/3rds of the way into the book.


Okay, so what can I tell you? Renee is a 16-year-old girl who has enjoyed a beautiful life with her parents, living in California. But the story starts out on the day that Renee discovers her parents dead in the forest. Their death is strange: cotton in their mouths and coins around their bodies. At this point her estranged grandfather enters the picture as her guardian. He is stiff and formal and very hard to connect to and he tells Renee that she is going to go to boarding school in Maine. The only appealing thing about this move is that it is the same school where her mom and dad met.


Once she gets to school, she meets this very dark and mysterious boy named Dante (with a name like that, he’d have to be dark and mysterious—am I right?!?). He has the reputation of being connected to a close-knit Advanced Latin group—yes, Dante speaks and understands Latin, strange:) Unfortunately, this Latin group experienced some deaths the previous school year (Dante found the body), and, since then, Dante has distanced himself from the kids at school and life in general.


Renee with her sassy attitude and tell-it-like-it-is conversational style has a funny encounter with Dante on the first day of school, and from that point forward, Dante and Renee can’t seem to stay out of each other’s way. One hint I’ll give you about their relationship – it’s very “Thus, with a kiss, I die.” Only…you don’t. And all of you who are thinking VAMPIRES—banish the thought (though that was my original thinking when I read the title).


All I can tell you is that the mystery of what is going on at the boarding school is worth the read, and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series called Life Eternal (and again, it’s not a story about vampires—shocking, I know.)

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