Beautiful Dead by Yvonne Woon

This books didn't turn out to be anything I thought it was going to be.  The story is definitely intriquing and did grab me from the start with mystery.  Renee is coming home from a beach trip with her BFF Annie for her birthday.  Something draws her to the to her parents car on the side of the road where she goes searching the forest armed with a flashlight.  When she finds her parents just mysteriously dead with guaze stuffed in their mouth and coins scattered around their bodies, her life irrevocably changes.  Her estranged grandfather becomes her gaurdian and moves her to the east coast to go to a boarding school in Maine.  Gottfried Academy is an old school where both her parents went to school.  Renee finds the school strange and feels out of her element in many ways.  She makes friends but finds the subjects at Gottfried strange and existential such as Latin, Horticulture, and lectures about burials.  She also meets a strange beautiful boy that she sits next to in science. (I know very Twilighty)  but Dante is fascinated with her in a very different way.  Renee makes himm feel alive.  The whole secret of what is going on at the school shapes the story.  There are disappearances and deaths all said to be a Gottfried Curse.  Renee struggles with the secret and what it means in her life.  It is hard to really talk about without spoiling the secret.  I really usually don't read paranormals on what this subject turns out to be.  This book tricked me and the subject was written from a beautiful almost ethereal quality.  I enjoyed the story and will probably continue with the next one.  I do have to say the last chapter was problem in itself.  Renee and Dante, one cannot live while the other is alive which causes the ultimate question of love and life.  It was very intriquing but not one of my all time favorite books.