Review: Die for Me by Amy Plum

Die for Me by Amy Plum
My rating: 1.5 of 5 stars

In the City of Lights, two star-crossed lovers battle a fate that is destined to tear them apart again and again for eternity.

When Kate Mercier's parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life--and memories--behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.

Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate's guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he's a revenant--an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.

So, apparently zombies are sexy now?

Okay, so the young-adult genre sexualized vampires, werewolves, and other monsters that should be ripping your throat out, but seriously? Zombies? That seems to be going a bit too far.

Now, I’ll just say this because it’s the only thing positive I have to say about this book: Die for Me’s concept is extremely original. Unfortunately, it’s executed horribly. And the sad part is, this could have actually been really good, if it hadn’t taken every single cliché in young adult paranormal romances and just jumbled them all together. I blame Twilight for this book.


Let’s see, in Die for Me, there’s:

- An insecure teenager, who doesn’t feel she is worthy enough of her love interest, Mr. Perfect.

- Mr. Perfect. He’s stunning, yet mysterious, and for some reason has an obsession with the dull Miss Insecure Teenager.

- Some obstacle that makes their relationship more complicated, but “true love” overcomes the challenge.

- Useless secondary characters

- Miss Insecure Teenager becomes obsessed with Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect stalks Miss Insecure Teenager.

- That special electric spark that occurs whenever the two love interests kiss, or Miss Insecure Teenager “turns into a gooey mess” every time they touch, or anything like that.

Trust me, there’s a lot more Twilight-esque clichés (or really any other crappy YA PR) other than the ones I mentioned above. Which is why I’m agreeing with the big, pretty advertisement on Goodreads stating:

Love Twilight? You’ll adore Die for Me!

And that’s probably true. If you loved Twilight, you will most likely love Die for Me.

I didn’t like Twilight, and I really didn’t like Die for Me. I knew very early on in the book that I wouldn’t like it (when Kate claimed she had extreme agoraphobia, then went to a café with absolutely no problems whatsoever the next day was when I realized this book and I were not going to get along).

Sadly, those stupid little mistakes dropped here and there were the least of my problems when it came to Die for Me, because I really, really didn’t like the protagonist, or her relationship with her love interest.

That was probably one of the biggest problems I had with the book: the relationship between Kate and Vincent. Yes, of course it was insta-love, but that’s beside the fact. It just felt disturbing that Vincent is pretty much a zombie, and that Kate is hooking up with him constantly. I know that these zombies aren’t the zombies like in The Walking Dead, and that they’re sexualized and actually have a purpose (which I liked), it just… disturbed me, maybe because he’s dead, but, then again, so is Edward. I don’t know, this relationship was just very weird to me. And not only that, it’s creepy as hell. When Kate asks Vincent if he’s been spying on her (when they’ve barely known each other), he says:

”Two cute girls move to the area—what am I supposed to do?”

Hmm… I don’t know… Walk up to them and actually talk to them, and don’t stalk them? But then “a wave of delight rippled through Kate’s body at his words” and I was done with this book.

And, of course, Kate is insecure, and doesn’t think she deserves to be with the “too-gorgeous-to-be-true” Vincent, because, though she might be slightly pretty, she is by no means beautiful on his level.

And then there’s Vincent, who is described by Kate as “a god straight out of a Renaissance painting, with his brown skin stretched tightly over his muscular torso and his black hair falling back from his face in waves”. Okay, we get it; he’s gorgeous. He’s also extremely creepy, has been spying on Kate before she even knew he existed, he watches her while he sleeps, and he had a picture of her on his bedside table within a week or two of him knowing her. That’s seriously some creepy shit. [Although he did have a reason for having her picture on his bedside table, he technically didn’t save her. Charlotte did. (hide spoiler)]

Then, after countless pages of absolutely nothing happening but Kate moping around, the book comes to an “exciting” conclusion. After all the build up throughout the whole entire book, I was hoping there would be at least something redeemable in the predictable ending, but it was over within a few pages.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed in Die for Me, and didn’t like it at all. The romance and dialogue felt contrived, and there was virtually no character development that had me hoping any character wouldn’t die in the end. I will probably end up reading Die for Me’s sequel, Until I Die, but not for a while.

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