YA Fiction Review: Beautiful Dead, Summer by Eden Maguire

Beautiful Dead: Summer
by Eden Maguire
Copyright 2011
Sourcebooks Fire
272 pages
ISBN: 9781402239465
YA Fiction/Paranormal

From the publisher:
Not alive. Not dead. Somewhere in between lie the Beautiful Dead.
It’s been months since Darina has seen her undead boyfriend and her heart is breaking all over again. The wait is slowly driving her crazy.

All she wants to do is be with Phoenix, to feel his arms wrapped around her. But to earn the pleasure of that embrace, Darina must track down the crazed killer that shot Summer Madison.

Was it a random shooting? Or was the gifted singer the victim of an obsessive fan? As time runs out, Darina will risk her own life to discover the truth.

But if she solves Summer’s murder, Darina knows it only brings her one step closer to losing Phoenix forever…

My Review:

We've all heard of the vampire craze, the angel craze and the latest craze seems to be...zombies! I'll admit to being a fan of quirky stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I've even shot a Nazi Zombie while playing Call of Duty Black Ops with my little brother so naturally the trend towards zombies in YA fiction is something that I find interesting. The last book I read, Beautiful Dead: Summer, book 3 in the Beautiful Dead series combines zombies and angels which makes for one dark and mysterious paranormal romance.

I'll be the first to admit that I was very confused when I first started this novel but that's simply because I haven't read the other two books in this series. I have the feeling that if I had read them Summer would have gone so much better for me. That said I love the fact that this book is different from any that I've read. While it features "angsty" teens and young love it is more of a Nancy Drew than a Twilight type story. I thought the whole teen detective angle was very cool! While it wasn't what the story was centered, around I was very anxious to discover whodunit to see if Summer would finally be set free from being stuck between the worlds.

Overall this Beautiful Dead book was very interesting. I feel like the author should have included more about Davina and the others from the previous story so those who hadn't read the stories could still understand most of what was going on. I have read a great many series's starting with book 2 or 3 with no problem but then again I've read some where I was so confused I felt as if the book may have well been written in French. This was somewhere in the middle. Other than that, I think that teen readers and the YA readers who are a bit older (like me) will enjoy the Beautiful Dead: Summer. I hope to get the other books in the series so I can "catch up" soon!

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Content Note: Some strong language

*I received my complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for posting my honest review.*