Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon

At Gottfried Academy, just one kiss will take your breath away. After Renee discovers her parents dead in what appears to be a strange double murder, she is sent to Gottfried Academy, a remote and mysterious high school dedicated to philosophy, 'crude sciences', and Latin: the Language of the Dead. Here she meets Dante, a dark and elusive student who harbors a deadly secret, but to whom she feels inexplicably drawn. Despite himself, Dante cannot control his attraction to Renee either and their desires gradually deepen into a complex and dangerous romance. But Dante's not the only one with secrets...Gottfried Academy has a few of its own. When Renee begins to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a former student, she begins to realize just how deadly these secrets are...Dark romance meets haunting murder mystery in this captivating tale of love, death and destiny.

 I really enjoyed this book! At first, I thought it would be a bit cliched, much like Twilight - but, actually, it wasn't, and I was hooked on it right until the end. For a debut novel, it is incredibly captivating, and I loved how she characterized the characters of Renee, Dante, Brandon and Eleanor. Although I found a lot of the book very obvious, and found it slightly irritating when I realized truths before Renee, I loved the complicated romance between her and Dante, and thought that the whole plot between them was so well planned and thought-out - at the beginning I was skeptical, and thought that it was just going to be another Bella/Edward scenario - but it was so much better than that, and you genuinely believed that the two characters were two genuine people who were genuinely in love. Woon wrote it in such a way that the reader is constantly hooked all the way through the book - they are hooked on the mysteries at the beginning, and they are hooked on the answers at the end. I honestly loved it, and would recommend this book to anyone who loves dark fantasy books. Twilight-lovers, eat your heart out! And Twilight-haters? Eat your heart out, too!
Rating:4/5