Die for Me (edition 2012)

Real rating : 4.5 roses ;D ( )

The first time I came across Die for Me was from the hype in Goodreads, and it hooked me almost instantly.
Paris? That's my favorite city. Catchy title? Check. Gorgeous cover? Check. Overall? Totally made it to my list.
But it was long before I decided to pick it up, and it spent quite a long time on my TBR list.

This book introduced us to our main character, Kate Mercier, as she struggled with her parents sudden death. Along with her sister, Georgia, they moved out to Paris, where their grandparents lived.
Finally felt comfortable with her new home, Kate's life was shaken once again when she met Vincent, the gorgeous boy at the cafe who seemed to watch her and all.
But when she saw Vincent's friend crushed by a train, and seemed alive and healthy the next time they met, Kate was suddenly thrust into the world of the Revenant, where the chosen people could die and reanimated again and again.

The plot was intriguing, and the execution was well enough. The tension building was done nicely, and it made readers sitting on the edge of their seat and flipping the book, wanting more. It was sagging in some parts, but for most part, I think the story flowed well enough. I also could picture the scene perfectly on my head, with the great description that didn't give out too much or too little.

For me personally, I think that Kate's character was a bit flat and too common. It's not like she's a Mary-Sue, but I think she lacks uniqueness and surprise.
Our main hero, Vincent, was charming and oh-so-handsome, and totally all over Kate. That's okay. It's not a total turn-off point for me. But then again, lack of surprise.
Oddly, I found that the secondary character was more interesting and real than our main character. Ambrose (Vincent's friend) and Georgia (Kate's sister) were the two character I like. Georgia's personality was so distinct-explosive, reckless, and all action-while Ambrose was truly a funny and devil-may-care guy.

Overall, I think this book is quite okay. For all of people who loves Fantasy, as well as aww-romance, go for this book, because this is exactly what you're looking for. ( )

I held off reading Amy Plum’s 2011 début novel Die For Me, the first installment of her Revenants trilogy, due to a wonderfully entertaining review on Amazon (which has sadly disappeared) that laid all the negatives of the book out with plenty of facts backing the criticisms up. I love a well-thought-out argument and since, in this instance, it detailed how very much Die For Me was like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight I decided I was in no hurry to check it out. At the time, I just wasn’t in the mood for another Twilight clone. Now that I have discovered plenty of new worlds in the pages of books outside of Twilight I decided to give Die For Me a chance (a $1.99 ebook sale didn’t hurt either). What I found was a highly addictive read that had me tearing through the story and grabbing up book two, Until I Die, before I’d even finished book one. Is it Twilight re-born? Or something totally new? Let’s dig deeper.

What I Loved

The Mythology: The revenant mythology Amy Plum has created is unique and fascinating. It calls to mind both zombies and the immortals of Highlander – with the latter feeling like the strongest influence. I found it interesting that “good” revenants have an “addiction” to save others but “bad” revenants desire to kill, while their physical attributes allow them to blend easily into society. Die For Me very carefully lays out the mythology and I loved that many questions Kate had about Vincent were answered in this first book.

The Setting: I’ve never been to Paris, but I’ve read about so many of the places mentioned here in other books or heard about them in my long ago French classes. Since author Amy Plum actually lives in the City of Lights, she threw in all kinds of little touches to the story that made me feel I was actually visiting the city and interacting with the people who call it home. Little bits of etiquette, the cafés and markets, the hidden courtyards – everything combined to give a sense of realism to the tale.

What I Liked

No Love Triangle: Yep, you heard me – no love triangle! While Vincent’s friend Jules has delicately expressed some interest in Kate, at no point in this book did it ever feel like an actual triangle was imminent. A refreshing change.

The Truth Is Out There: By this I mean that while the entire Revenant community is very careful to keep their secrets, the truth can and does get out. By the time the story ends someone close to Kate is brought into the secret Revenant world, so Kate is not alone in her knowledge of Revenants. There is also an entire network of public servants helping keep the secret, which is kind of nice.

The Characters: I liked Vincent and Kate, despite their Edward/Bella vibes. Vincent is not as dark and tortured as Edward (most of the time), but Kate definitely has signs of the “not very beautiful, loves the classics, what does he see in me?” heroine that seems too familiar. There is a nice investigation of grief in Die For Me, however, as she struggles to deal with the loss of her parents and her fear of losing anyone else she loves to death. She also shows a fighting spirit – when Vincent is in danger at one point she swings a sword right along with the bad guy…just very badly. Good to see some fighting spirit.

There are a lot of secondary characters between Vincent’s Revenant family and Kate’s human one, but they are very well-defined and easy to keep apart. My hands down favorite, however, is Kate’s sister Georgia who is a party animal but loves her sister more than anything in the world. There is a wonderful sibling relationship on display in this book; the girls may be complete opposites, but they have each other's back every step of the way.

What Made Me Hesitate

Twilight Lives: More so in this first book of the trilogy, but oh is that Twilight feeling alive and well! Kate/Bella, Vincent/Edward, Charlotte/Alice – these were the worst offenders. Co-dependency rears its ugly head in Die For Me when Kate breaks up with Vincent at one point. She is the one to initiate the break-up but, just like Meyer’s New Moon (which I happen to love), both of them become ghosts of themselves and basically can’t handle being apart. I can definitely see the correlations made by that long ago reviewer, but overall the story was addictive enough I could overlook the similarities.

Favorite Quote

“Well, spit on my empty grave—if it ain’t the attack of the Disney princesses!” he snarled. (Chapter 37)

Conclusion

Amy Plum has created a wonderfully unique mythology involving a zombie/immortal race called Revenants that is absolutely fascinating. Die For Me is a page-turner, but it suffers slightly from some Twilight overtones. Thankfully, this is off-set by the compelling backdrop of Paris, plenty of action and romance, and a cast of likable characters. Die For Me is a great addition to your YA paranormal reading pile. ( )

Die for Me is a solid debut effort for novelist Amy Plum, who clearly uses her first-hand knowledge of Paris to create a lush and vibrant backdrop for her story. I received an ARC from NetGalley of this title, and I am glad that I did. It's a fresh take on YA fantasy in a market that has really taken off these days but has tended to offer a lot of same-old, same-old as of late. Die for Me is the story of sixteen-year-old Kate Mercier, who, along with her older sister Georgia, has recently moved to Paris to live with her grandparents after a tragic accident leaves them orphans. Plum does an excellent job of writing about Kate's pain and the difficulty she has dealing with her loss throughout the book. Naturally, some time after arriving in Europe, Kate meets a boy, a beautiful boy who seems to have an air of mystery about him. I really liked that Kate and Vincent's initial meetings aren't all trumpets playing and angels singing, but more like the awkward and potentially embarrassing beginnings often experienced outside of fiction. As Kate slowly comes to learn what Vincent is—because of course he isn't a regular human—the story continues to unfold nicely. In a genre overrun with vampires, shape shifters, witches, and the latest, fallen angels, Vincent and his brethren are something new. They're revenants, undead immortals who became what they are by sacrificing their lives for another's and now they devote their—lives? existences? remaining time on the planet?— to helping save as many humans as they can. They are also locked into eternal combat with the numa, their evil undead counterparts who are determined to destroy as many human lives as they can.
For the first half or so of the novel, I was completely immersed in the story. It was a solid five-star read. The concept of the revenants was totally new, though, and I did have to go back and forth quite a bit at first to get a better handle on who they are and what they can do—even now, I'm not entirely sure I could ace a pop quiz on the subject, but a passable score should be doable. The idea of this supernatural race is definitely something new, and it was a nice change. The second half of the book is what slipped it down to a four-star read for me; it's an engaging read and a solid story, but it does have a healthy dose of the melodrama so prevalent in YA fiction. It was refreshing to see that Kate and Vincent didn't magically have an instant relationship, but naturally once they did have one it suddenly became the relationship that will put all other relationships to shame. Some of their later conversations drifted a bit into the overly sappy Romeo-and-Juliet-style of conversation, but it wasn't any more over the top than other examples I've read lately in this genre. Kate and Georgia's grandparents were present in the story but just barely—they had a tendency to just smile benignly on the girls no matter what, which did make them seem like much flatter characters than many of the others in the story. The main villain, too, could have been a bit more present in the story before his dramatic showing in the climax—it felt like we really didn't get a solid enough grasp on his character and motivations up to that point. Overall, though, none of these things seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the story. It should do really well with its target audience, and I have a feeling it will spend more time out with my students than on my classroom library shelves this spring. I am looking forward to seeing what Plum has in mind for these characters in the next book in the series, because I believe it has the potential to be even better than the first.
( )

I keep trying to read this book, to like this book, it's 'right up my'... book alley, but now on try three, I might just give up.