Review: Die for Me

by Amy Plum
publisher: HarperTeen
date published: May 10, 2011
format: hardcover pages: 344
source: purchased
Amazon / Goodreads / B&N

From Goodreads:

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.

Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.

Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies ... immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.

While I'm fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family's—in jeopardy for a chance at love?

What I Thought

I had been waiting for Die for Me for several weeks and was very excited to finally pre-order it. When it arrived at my door on May 10, I was thrilled, yet a bit nervous. What if it didn't live up to the hype? I wanted so badly for it to be as good as I hoped it would be. Luckily for me, it was. From the very first chapter I was sucked into the story. Kate is a very compelling character with much depth. She has been though a great tragedy and an international move. She does her very best simply to survive this new life that has been foisted upon her, however difficult that may be. That she does so is an indication of her strength of character. This is a very good thing, for she will need all the strength she can get.

The element of romance in this book was absolutely perfect and was everything I expected of a novel set in Paris. Amy Plum does a fantastic job of describing everything from Kate's surroundings to day-to-day habits of Parisians. At several points in the story I almost felt like I was actually there. It is the perfect setting for the budding romance between Kate and Vincent. It also made an interesting scene for the on-going battles between the two factions of revenants. While there were several idyllic settings described within, Plum didn't ignore the more sinister side of the city. The night club Kate goes to with her sister, Georgia, made me feel just uneasy enough to know that something was about to happen.

I loved the fresh perspective Amy Plum used when creating her more supernatural characters. The word “revenant” derives from the French verb revenir (a verb I have become all too familiar with in my French classes), which means “to come back,” which describes Vincent and his kindred in a nutshell. While folklore typically attributes revenants with terrorizing humans, Ms. Plum gave us a new twist on it. There are two different factions of revenants in Die for Me. The first, comprised of Vincent and his cohorts, are good revenants, beings who give their lives to save others again and again in a never-ending cycle. They come into being when they give their lives to save another's life. The bad revenants, or numa, are the polar opposite. Rather than dying to save others, they don't willingly die and, instead, spend their time trying to cause the deaths of humans. The numa come into being when they betray another unto death. The numa are more in line with the traditional idea of the revenant and are truly formidable foes for the kindred. Learning about the inner-workings of the two factions made Die for Me a very intriguing read and left me wanting to learn more.

Die for Me is another of those books that I wish I could give a higher rating to. When a book has me reading 100 pages in a single sitting, I know I've just read something very special. I will be looking forward to the next installment in the series with bated breath. Die for Me has more than earned 5 hoots.