Beautiful Dead: Jonas - Book Review

Beautiful Dead: Jonas

By: Eden Maguire
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Pages: 288
Rating: 5
Book Cover Rating: 5
Read: 7/3/2010
Genre: Urban Dark Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal Romance

The cover art for this book is what drew me in. It just has this look that had me loving it. I found and requested this book through the GoodReads swap. My skin was jumping off of me when Beautiful Dead finally hit my doorstep. I rushed through the book I was reading and then dove right into this book and finished the next day.

Beautiful Dead: Jonas is the first in a series. The story line is dark and left me oddly on edge. The premise is unique. At least I can say that I have never read anything this odd and uncanny book.

Darina, is our protagonist, who is a teen trying to deal with the death of four fellow students: Jonas, Arizona, Summer, and Phoenix. Alas, one of them was her boyfriend, Phoenix. She falls into depression and starts to see him in places that remind her of him. She soon finds out that her psychotic sightseeing is a bit more real then one would think.

The Beautiful Dead are selected people who have died and come back to figure out the events that unfold leading to their deaths so they can understand what had happened. The first book focuses on Jonas death, his time is running out. Jonas died in a motorcycle crash that also severely injured his girlfriend, Zoey. What really happened?

Darina finds herself no longer coping with death but tangled in a web of trying to spend time with half dead Phoenix, making it past all of the Beautiful Dead's powerful tricks to keep their kind a secret (showing their darker side), and the mystery she is determined to help solve surrounding Jonas's death. Surprisingly, Phoenix is a very caring and loving half dead. Who would of thought? The romance was cute. She struggled to fix her friendship with Zoey, who was indeed a very interesting character herself. Should Maguire toss in another obstacle for Darina? Logan was it. Her best friend, was now showing interest in her. He wanted more, a relationship that Darina could not even fathom now that she sort of had Pheonix back. Creepy.

Maguire spun a new twisted tale around a new idea of Zombies and created a book that I really enjoyed. The death and loss was sad and pulled on those heart strings but Darina's orginial personailty flows through the book to keep it light and flowing. This book has Paranormal Romance, Zombies with super powers, mystery, all wrapped up in a debut novel.


Rating:5

Quotes:

"You're crazier than a gut-shot possum. That's what my old man would say."

"I didn't wreck it," I protested, defying the Neanderthals on the porch to say one bad word about female drivers. "I just rearranged the front fender, that's all."

"What are you suddenly, some kind of ghost buster?"

"Can you imagine what it's like, this PTSD? It's like knitting when you drop a stitch and everything unravels. You end up with a stupid hole that just keeps on getting bigger."

"I sank to the floor and wept until I was exhausted. Then I thought it trough and tried to deal with the shock of realizing that I was one crazy girl driven out of her head by the loss of the person in the world who had meant everything to her."