Review: Life Eternal

Title: Life Eternal (Dead Beautiful #2)

Author: Yvonne Woon

Publisher: Disney- Hyperion

Publication Date: February 24th 2012

Source: Net Galley

My Rating: 5/5

(Goodreads) Summary:

Renée Winters has changed. When she looks in the mirror, a beautiful girl with an older, sadder face stares back. Her condition has doctors mystified, but Renée can never reveal the truth: she died last May, and was brought back to life by the kiss of her Undead soul mate, Dante Berlin.
Now, her separation from Dante becomes almost unbearable. His second life is close to an end, and each passing day means one less that she will spend with the boy who shares her soul.
Just when Renée has almost given up hope, she learns of the Nine Sisters-brilliant scholars who, according to legend, found a way to cheat death. She can't shake the feeling that they are somehow connected to her dreams, strange visions that hint at a discovery so powerful, and so dangerous, that some will stop at nothing to protect it.
Renée thought she knew the truth about life and death. But there is a secret woven through history that holds the only hope for Dante and Renée. Unless they find answers soon, their time together is doomed to be cut short.
 
My Thoughts:
 
Usually I find that sequels disappoint me because they almost never live up to the first book. I absolutely adored Dead Beautiful (read my review here) so when it came to reading Life Eternal I thought it couldn't possibly as good. Luckily, that wasn't the case.
 
In this book Renee had to leave Gottfried Academy and switch to a school for only monitors. It is also a school that isn't too fond of the Undead which creates a lot of problems for Renee and her lover Dante. On top of that, Dante only has a few years left to "live" and Renee goes to drastic measures to search for eternal life.
 
The plot of this novel is fantastic. It is unbelievably suspenseful and never gets boring. If I had all the time in the world, I would have probably read the entire book in one sitting. Life Eternal is filled with plot twists and mysteries that are never predictable making it quite the page turner.
 
The characters changed a lot in this book compared to Dead Beautiful. Eleanor, the professors at Gottfried, Renee's friends at Gottfried, and Nathaniel were barely even mentioned! As upsetting as that is, because I loved reading about all of them, new characters were introduced that were just as interesting to read about.
 
Overall, I loved this novel just as much as the first in the series. The ending was a cliff-hanger that is killing me because I know the next book won't be out for a while. I recommend this series to everyone so if you haven't already picked it up, go do so now!