At its heart are Renée and Dante, two people who share a single soul (quite literally).

On the surface, the novel explores soul transfer and rebirth. But as the story unfolds, the influence of the French philosopher René Descartes becomes increasingly apparent. Drawing on Descartes’ theory of mind-body dualism, the novel explores the possibility that the mind and body are separate entities—that even if the body perishes, the soul does not. It reminded me (perhaps a little unfairly) of the law of conservation of energy: energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Not because the two are the same, but because both revolve around the idea of something enduring beyond physical change. (Forgive my ADHD brain, I am coming to the point.)

The story also introduces the Netherworld through the Five-Point Riddle, in which a person must surrender (because can’t it be true love without sacrifice?) each of their five senses, one by one, at specific points to gain access to this hidden realm.

Blending gothic fantasy with philosophy, Dead Beautiful draws heavily from Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. It is one of those rare YA novels that entertains while quietly asking profound questions about consciousness, identity, mortality, and what it truly means to exist.

Yet, for all its philosophical exploration, the question that stayed with me wasn’t about the soul. It was about love.

So much of literature and most art, I’d say keeps returning to the same idea: that true love is inherently sacrificial. We celebrate lovers who give up everything for one another, often treating sacrifice as the highest proof of devotion.

But I wonder whether that idea has quietly shaped the way we love in real life. Perhaps it encourages us to stay longer than we should. To excuse behaviours that hurt us. To mistake endurance for commitment, or suffering for proof of depth.

I’m not arguing against sacrifice altogether (yet). Every meaningful relationship asks something of us. But where do we draw the line between love and self-abandonment? And how do we understand it when literature itself glorifies sacrificial love? (This isn’t a criticism of the novel itself.)

Maybe the more interesting question isn’t whether true love exists, but rather:

What does love mean to you?

As a girl, and from the culture I come from, Sacrifice is the ultimate form of love. Obedient daughters, sacrificial mothers and silent wives, is the norm isn’t it?

For the most part, I enjoyed sidelining my own interests to ensure the other person knew I loved them.

You may think, Bad move Vidyaa. (now I agree though. Bad move indeed)

But my question comes to this, do you keep boundaries to protect your peace or just leave people as is, to understand how a person might behave if they had such free will.

Because I used to think that a person that genuinely loves, cares and understands you will treat you with respect regardless of what boundaries you keep( if you keep that is)

Perhaps boundaries were never meant to be walls after all. Maybe they were always meant to be introductions.

A way of saying:
“This is who I am. This is what hurts me. This is what matters to me.”

And then stepping back. Not to control what the other person does next, but to finally see them clearly. Because love is not tested by how much of yourself you are willing to surrender and give up to accommodate the other person.

It is tested by what remains when surrender is no longer expected.

Maybe the people who truly love us would have respected us regardless. Or maybe they needed us to tell them where the gate was.

Either way, the answer was never hidden in the boundary itself. It is in the way the person reacts to the boundary( and for people that feel a little uneasy, No, you aren’t being difficult)

A phrase I came up with in the middle of a breakdown.

Like any self-respecting writer, I wrote it down for later.

This isn’t a deep dive into history, politics or literature (though yes, Ozymandias did cross my mind). It’s about a quieter kind of history … our own.

For a long time, I tried to understand people before they understood themselves. I anticipated feelings before they were spoken, solved problems before they were mentioned, and carried emotions that were never mine to carry.

That’s what good girls do, isn’t it?

Or at least, that’s what many of us are taught.

It took a long, messy heartbreak for me to realise something unsettling.

You don’t try to understand the person who has a knife in your chest(metaphorically, of course) you save your own damned life(That part isn’t much of a metaphor)

As I started looking inward, I noticed a pattern. This wasn’t the first time I’d been hurt. It wasn’t even the first time I’d sacrificed my peace to preserve someone else’s.

The names changed. The circumstances changed. The pattern didn’t.

History didn’t repeat. It rhymed.

Every conflict ended with me trying harder to keep the peace. A peace that never actually arrived. I confused understanding with endurance, compassion with self-abandonment, and love with the constant shrinking of my own needs.

Until one lesson finally refused to be ignored.

Never compromise your boundaries to keep someone else comfortable.

Compromise is part of every healthy relationship.

Self-abandonment isn’t.

I thought love meant adjusting, caring and understanding.

It does, to an extent. But not at the cost of yourself. Never at the cost of who you are and what values you hold.

There’s a thin line between kindness and abandoning who you are. It can be especially difficult to see when you’ve been raised to nurture everyone else first.

So yes, Be understanding , caring and nurturing.

But nurture yourself first.

Because history has a habit of rhyming until you finally learn the lesson it’s been trying to teach you all along.