Review Comparison: Die For Me by Amy Plum

Review Comparison: Die For Me

Review Comparison is a feature I do where I pull out the pros and cons of the featured book mentioned in my review and other bloggers' reviews.

Click for my original review: 

Die For Me by Amy Plum
DNF at page 120 of 341
Because this was a DNF for me, I am NOT including my review in the comparison. I primarily DNF-ed because the romance took center stage in the plot very early on and I was bored. I also didn't connect with any of the characters and I wasn't feeling the mythology.

The following bloggers kindly allowed me to include their reviews in this feature: 

The Reader Room
Everything To Do With Books
Alison Can Read: 5 out of 5
Musings of a YA Reader: 5 out of 5
Irresistible Reads: 5 out of 5
Melissa: 4 out of 5
Poetry to Prose: 4 out of 5
From the Bookshelf of T.B.: 4 out of 5
My Precious: 3.5 out of 5
Mindful Musings: 3 out of 5
Need Tea: Grade C (2 out of 5)
Ruby's Reads 1 out of 6

Please click on the links to read their full reviews!

~Conclusions~ 

Reviewers were almost unanimous (though not quite) in liking the revenant mythology, remarking on how unique and refreshing it was. The romance appears to be the most divisive factor, with some reviewers loving it and others thinking it commanded too much pagetime.

 
  

~Writing, Pacing and Setting~

Writing:

• "I got a strong impression of Kate and Vincent's world" (Alison Can Read)
• "The writing is lush and rich and incredibly detailed, so much so that I can imagine myself in Paris" (Melissa)
• "...not overly descriptive...just the right mix of imagery and simple prose" (My Precious)
• "...smooth and easy to read. I could lose myself in the plot..." (Alison Can Read)
• "The book captured me and I just had to finish reading it as soon as I could" (Everything To Do With Books) 
• "Enthralling" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "Very exciting" (Melissa)
• "I couldn't get enough of it. Her prose is beautiful and magnetic" (Irresistible Reads)
• "...crisp and lovely" (Everything To Do With Books) 

• "...great pacing...I never felt like I was trudging through the novel" (Alison Can Read)
• "...the flow of the book was nice and smooth" (Everything To Do With Books)
• "The pace was perfect" (Irresistible Reads)
• "The plot was a good pace" (The Reader Room)
• "The pace of the book is moderate to fast, but may prove to be a little confusing at the start for some readers" (My Precious)
• "...tedious to read [because of the romance]...the main plot only emerges for like the last fifty pages or so" (Need Tea)

• "It would be impossible to not see the familiar tropes in the story, but I felt that Amy Plum managed to give the book its own charm" (Poetry to Prose)

Setting

• "...mysterious and romantic" (Alison Can Read)
• "Plum makes it really easy to picture in your mind's eye the atmosphere of Paris and all the places Kate visits" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "...refreshing change from the usual high school setting" (Irresistible Reads)
• "...exotic setting...I felt that this setting gave the whole book a new and intriguing feel" (Mindful Musings)
• "[the Paris setting] was a hugely refreshing thing...added to the romantic flavor" (Everything To Do With Books) 
• "I was disappointed not to get a taste of Paris from the writing" (Ruby's Reads)

Mythology

• "Unique" (Alison Can Read)
• "...truly unique and intriguing" (Irresistible Reads)
• "It felt very original...I loved the concept of the revenants" (The Reader Room)
• "...creative and unique, especially when it came to the Revenant beings" (My Precious)
• "...creative concept...loved the idea of revenants" (Mindful Musings)
• "I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of revenants" (From the Bookshelf of T.B.)
• "Woven carefully throughout the book, allowing readers to learn more about the revenants while still being engaged by the overall storyline" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "There were new ideas and concepts thrown in that made Die For Me stand out" (From the Bookshelf of T.B.)
• "...put her own spin on something different...fascinating...I enjoyed getting more details on [the revenants] as the story progressed" (Poetry to Prose)
• "...the fact that Vincent was an immortal made me roll my eyes a little, however, the way his immortality works is completely different to any other book I have ever read and I actually really enjoyed that part..." (Everything To Do With Books) 
• "I enjoyed the mythology built up for the most part...it's really just a fancy way of saying zombies without the whole icky stuff" (Need Tea)
• "I really, really expected people to have lived so long to have greater wisdom" (Ruby's Reads)
• "It was a bit hard to keep up with all the different "rules" of being a revenant" (From the Bookshelf of T.B.)
• "Amy Plum played fast and loose with the world-building...no sooner does she introduce a rule, then there's an exception" (Ruby's Reads)

~Characters~

Kate:

• "...highly relatable" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "I think readers will feel a sense of kindred or a sense of sympathy [with Kate]" (Melissa)
• "...very easy to relate to...very easy to connect ...to her emotions" (From the Bookshelf of T.B.)
• "Smart, strong and genuine" (Irresistible Reads)
• Fantastic, interesting, believable, relatable "...she has her head screwed on and she can definitely think for herself" (Everything To Do With Books) 
• "What I loved most about Kate is she thought about the consequences before making a decision" (Irresistible Reads)
• "[Kate is] slow and cautious...this, I think, is extremely positive" (Need Tea)
• "I liked Kate a lot. I thought she was interesting..." (The Reader Room)
• "The characters felt mediocre at best" (Mindful Musings)
• "...I don't feel that I know that much about her outside of her relationship with Vincent...not particularly vibrant" (Ruby's Reads)

Supporting Characters:

• "...well-described, distinct personalities and play important roles in the story." (Alison Can Read)
• "...well-developed" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "...an impressive cast of side characters" (Melissa)
• "They were all really interesting and brought something interesting to the novel" (The Reader Room)
• Fantastic, "...I just loved all of them as they all had their different characteristic's and their own unique place in the book" (Everything To Do With Books)
• "...endearing and likeable" (My Precious)
• "...realistic and sincere...creatively written and integrated into the plot line" (Mindful Musings)

Vincent:

• "A mixture of reserve, bravery, kindness, intelligence, and passion..." (Alison Can Read)
• "Gorgeous, mysterious, sweet yet sexy and has a French accent. What else could a girl want!" (Irresistible Reads)
• "...mysterious, sexy and yes, French! I was really intrigued by him..." (The Reader Room)

 ~Romance~

• "You could argue the romance is nothing new (although I liked it)" (Alison Can Read)
• "The whole romance aspect...felt like the same old paranormal romance to me...[which] made it hard at times for me to keep reading because I felt like I had heard it all before" (Mindful Musings)

• "They don't fall instantly in love, but there is an immediate connection" (Alison Can Read)
• "...their romance takes a comfortable pace" (Melissa)
• "They actually have time to go on a few dates before being ready to die for each other" (Alison Can Read)
• "I would have loved to see more of their friendship, but their growing feelings for each other didn't feel rushed...it all felt very genuine" (Poetry to Prose)
• "I wasn't even a big fan of their romance, though this was due in large part to the push-pull "I love you, but I can't bear to be with you because I don't want to lose you like I did my parents" stuff" (Ruby's Reads)
• "My only gripe is that I too felt that their "love at first sight" connection was a bit unrealistic" (Melissa)

• "...believable and completely swoonworthy" (Musings of a YA Reader)
• "...quite sweet...[it] had me smiling and enjoying it rather than cringing and being angry with how lame it was" (Everything To Do With Books)
• "...delicious yet tender...lots of playful banter and yummy kissing scenes" (Irresistible Reads)
• "[The romance] is the crux of Die For Me and it was well-written too" (Melissa)

• "My biggest issue...stemmed from the romance piece being the backbone of the story...falling slightly short on the action" (My Precious)
• "Die For Me revolves around the romance...and, in my opinion, the rest of the book suffered" (Ruby's Reads)
• What really went wrong was the romance. It wasn't really insta-love per se, but the way Kate develops a crush on him is instant and all consuming. The majority of the book focused on the trials of their relationship which actually shoved the real plot to the background" (Need Tea)
• "At times I was a little bored with all the Vincent is so gorgeous, I think I love him aspect of the story" (My Precious)

~Ending~

• "If you hate those damn cliffhangers then you are going to love this beautiful ending that gave us a little something extra" (Irresistible Reads)
• "...a very sweet and satisfying conclusion" (Poetry to Prose)
• "The ending wasn't too cliffhanger-y" (The Reader Room)
• "The ending was sweet and bumped this book up from being a poor read" (Need Tea)

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Recap 6/24 to 7/1

In case you missed anything, here's a recap of what was posted Saturday, June 24th through Friday, July 1st. 

+ DNF review of Die For Me by Amy Plum

+ Alyssa D. has won the copy of Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren!

Reviews

Babe in Boyland by Jody Gehrman
Supernaturally (Paranormalcy #2) by Kiersten White

(Click on the links to go to my reviews)

Memes

Waiting on Wednesday

Features

 Discussion: Embarrassing Book Covers
When bad covers happen to good books

Spotlight List: Faves of 2011 (So Far)

What's Your Status?

A meme created by Zakiya from Butterfly Feet Walking on Life where we recap our reading week. Feel free to visit her site and link up your own What's Your Status Posts. Here's how my week went:

Finished

Ward Against Death by Melanie Card

(Click on the link to go to Goodreads)

Review to come. I liked it! I'm thinking 3.5 stars.

Currently Reading

Little Women & Me by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
(Click on the link to go to Goodreads)

I'm so breaking out my LBL cheerleading pom-poms again!

Did Not Finish

Die for Me by Amy Plum

Received: Library

Pages 120 of 341

Reviews seem pretty divided on this one (so divided, in fact, that I'm making this the subject of the next Review Comparison), but I think I'm solidly on the "Not for me" side of things. While the romance is not insta-love, the book is insta-romance and that bored me. I'll explain.

Kate's relationship with Vincent is not the typical paranormal insta-love. Instead of professing her undying love for him after about five minutes of meeting, she actually thinks he's kind of bad news and approaches their relationship with extreme caution. When she finds out he's a paranormal entity, she isn't all, "OMG can you make me one too???" No, Kate's reaction is more like, "Woah, ok, that's weird. That's maybe a little more weird than I want in my life right now. I'm going to have to think about this." Wow! Her reaction is a lot more realistic and, even more importantly, SANER, than I'm used to from YA paranormal romances. So that was nice. 

What wasn't nice was the insta-romance. There isn't much development of the story or the characters before the plot veers off into relationship land, and then stays there for a really long time (we were still there by the time I DNF-ed at page 120). Nothing else really happens at all in this time outside of Kate and Vincent's relationship, andI really don't understand why they're interested in one another. At this point,  I didn't feel like I had enough time to get invested in Kate and her story before I had to swallow a relationship. I didn't know the characters, nor did I care for them, so whether or not they got together or kissed or broke up or whatever didn't matter to me.

The characters were also very shallow to me. I liked Kate enough, or, well, she was just ok for me but her level of development was fine. The other characters were really shallow though. There was nothing for me to differentiate them from any other stock character out there. I keep forgetting Vincent's name and running through a bunch of other similar stock guys (Dante, no, Edward, no) before finally remembering his name is Vincent.

I know that at this point I probably only scratched the surface of the paranormal mythology and so I don't think I can say I gave that a fair enough shake to pass any real judgments on it (though what I did read seemed kinda lame. Altruistic zombie superheroes? I hope there was more to it than that). Still, I wasn't intrigued by what I did learn, so I had no motivation to continue reading.

I know they're different from zombies, but I found it a little difficult to crush on a guy who is dead (like a corpse, not a vampire or a ghost) every month. That's just, I don't know, ew? It just felt like being at a funeral and looking at the body and it just felt wrong thinking of that person as a sexy love interest. Every time I pictured Vincent he looked like a zombie with off-colored starting-to-decompose skin and then I wanted to barf because I knew Kate would kiss him.

I had requested this book on NetGalley but I was rejected and eventually got my copy through the library. I'm starting to think HarperCollins has a great handle on my tastes because all the books they've given me I've loved and all the books they've denied me I've ended up disliking. Though Die For Me did go down easy (after reading for only a short time I was shocked at how many pages I had flown through), I was bored and disconnected from it.

I'm the type of reader who really wants romance in my books, but I want it to be a side dish, not the main meal. I'm happiest if it takes the whole book of non-romance-related plot before the two main characters finally get *that kiss* in the final chapter. In Die For Me, the romance takes center stage very early on and everything else gets relegated to the background. Add in that I just wasn't feeling the characters and I had trouble swallowing the paranormal parts, and this one just wasn't for me.

Miss anything last week? Click here to read a Recap. 

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