Life Eternal

Yvonne Woon

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publishing Date: February 24, 2012
Format: Netgalley e-book

I had been reborn, and I now had a little bit of Undead within me.  I didn’t know how the future was going to show itself, but maybe this was it.  The Undead reanimate as the best versions of themselves.  Wasn’t I prettier now, my features more mature? Wasn’t I a better monitor?

Renée is back living with her grandfather after school is over.  The events that happened at the end of the school year have bought her a summer of therapy.  Now, she is having nightmares that are unusual for a monitor (one who can sense the undead.)  She doesn’t tell anyone about the nightmares because she thinks that they are unreal and insignificant, until a member of the faculty of her school dies which is congruent with the dream she had.  Gottfried Academy is closed to students and only remains open to the undead.

Because of this, she attends Lycée St. Clement Academy which is located in Montreal, Canada.  This is a school solely for monitors.  Renée initially has reservations on attending the school because she wonders how she will see her undead boyfriend and soul mate, Dante. At Lycée St. Clement Academy, she learns how to become a better monitor.  She also is finding it harder to be separated from Dante.  She sees him occasionally and learns that he is working on finding an answer to how she and Dante can survive with only one soul as their time is running out.  She also learns about the Nine Sisters, their secret and The Liberum.  While trying to figure those three things out, she has episodes where she loses consciousness and has dreams that will help her find what she is seeking.  

Renée Winters has changed. When she looks in the mirror, a beautiful girl with an older, sadder face stares back. Her condition has doctors mystified, but Renée can never reveal the truth: she died last May, and was brought back to life by the kiss of her Undead soul mate, Dante Berlin.

Now, her separation from Dante becomes almost unbearable. His second life is close to an end, and each passing day means one less that she will spend with the boy who shares her soul.

Just when Renée has almost given up hope, she learns of the Nine Sisters—brilliant scholars who, according to legend, found a way to cheat death. She can’t shake the feeling that they are somehow connected to her dreams, strange visions that hint at a discovery so powerful, and so dangerous, that some will stop at nothing to protect it.

Renée thought she knew the truth about life and death. But there is a secret woven through history that holds the only hope for Dante and Renée. Unless they find answers soon, their time together is doomed to be cut short.

He took a step toward me and then stopped, as if he were too scared to come any closer – as if I wasn’t real. Suddenly I felt like I was seeing him for the first time; like we were meeting each other all over again in Crude Sciences, shivering as our fingers touched beneath the table.

As in Dead Beautiful, Woon is very descriptive.  You learn things in this book which will help explain the past events.  I love the way that she expands on Renée’s and Dante’s relationship and adds new characters into the mix.  Some of the characters were in the first book and you are just now getting to see them more in the storyline.  I thought it was well written with characters that have enough depth to them to support the story. 

Having to wait for the next book in this series to figure out what is going to happen, but that is always the case in multiple book series.  I found it hard to single out things that I didn't like in this book.