Monday 26 September 2011

Starcrossed review

Starcrossed
Josephine Angelini
June 3rd 2011
Macmillan Children's Books (UK)


Set on the island of Nantucket, STARCROSSED tells the tale of Helen Hamilton, a young woman whose destiny is forever altered when she meets Lucas Delos and tries to kill him in front of her entire high school. Which is terribly inconvenient, not only because Lucas is the most beautiful boy on the island, but also because Helen is so achingly shy she suffers physical pain whenever she is given too much attention.

Making matters worse, Helen is beginning to suspect she’s going crazy. Whenever she’s near Lucas or any member of his family she sees the ghostly apparitions of three women weeping bloody tears, and suffers the burden of an intense and irrational hate. She soon learns that she and Lucas are destined to play the leading roles in a Greek tragedy that the Three Fates insist on repeating over and over again throughout history. Like her namesake, Helen of Troy, she’s destined to start a war by falling in love. But even though Lucas and Helen can see their own star-crossed destiny, they’re still powerfully attracted to each other. Will they give up their personal happiness for the greater good, or risk it all to be together?



I think Starcrossed is the first book I've read that's really been based on Greek mythology, and I really, really enjoyed it! I totally loved the whole demi-god vibe in it, but it did make me glad that I've been watching ridiculous amounts of Horrible Histories so I knew about most of the stuff happening ;)


Though I really did enjoy the whole Greek aspect of it, it was a bit of a grower for me. I thought the beginning was quite slow, and it took me a while to get into because I didn't really like Helen that much at the beginning. I'm not gonna lie, it took me a long time to warm up to a lot of the characters, and I was completely sporting Claire and Jason way more that Helen and Lucas for a long time. Seriously, they need a book all to themselves. I'd love to read something from Claire's perspective! I think she was my favourite character. Her, Jason, Hector and Ariadne. And Matt. Though I did get a tiny but of a Cullen vibe from the Delos family, once I overlooked that, I could see the various differences between them and I  got over it and enjoyed it a lot more for that.


Helen and Lucas were a bit hit and miss for me. It definitely took me a while to get to like them, and even then, Lucas did annoy me with his possessiveness over Helen. Especially as they weren't properly going out. I don't care if he's jealous, he can't just go around beating people up for looking at Helen! That's out of line whether you're a demi-god or not. But apart from that, when they were not being crazy in love, I liked them a lot more! I find this a lot with books though. One thing I did like about the beginning was the hating each other thing. THAT I could dig. That sounds bad, but it was different! Finally a girl who saw a pretty man and didn't just melt and become a puddle of adoration and generally sappiness! Oh joy! But then that stopped and they were automatically in love! Whoddathunk. So that annoyed me a teeny bit. But after I got over the whole insta-hate/insta-love thang and stuff besides Lucas and Helen getting loved up starting happening, then I was happy.


I think most of my favourite parts were the parts with all the Delos family. I really, really grew to love that and I'm genuinely upset at all the things that happened to them. They're all such genuinely lovely people and they did not deserve it! (I seriously need to get it into my head that they're NOT REAL.) I really loved the training scenes too, and I'm glad that Helen could stand up for herself and fight for herself, but again with the who it' actualy turns out I'm the powerful (insert thing here) EVAR! That annoys me. Which is why I liked Hunting Lila, but that's got nothing to do with this...


Yeah. Anyway... Despite my issues (sorry if this came across a bit ranty - it IS a really, really good book!) with some of it, I really loved the side characters and I think the plot was really interesting too. It wasn't too predictable, and I loved all the Greek mythology! Plus I can't wait to find out what will happen next! :)

6 comments:

  1. Yay, glad you liked it! I thought the beginning was a little slow too but after about 100 pages it picked up :D Great review!

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  2. I really struggled with the beginning of this as well...infact I stopped reading it. Totally get what you mean about not liking Helen much. I did like her family too though =] Glad you enjoyed it eventually!

    The Cait Files

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  3. I'm a little iffy about getting this book because of the insta love, but I really like greek mythology so I think I'll try it. Thanks for the review!
    -Danna

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  4. Great review. I like the UK cover, so cute. I haven't read and I've been undecided so far.

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  5. Insta-love-love. Awesome review! Glad you liked! LOL at the Cullen vibe you got. When I first met the Delos family, that was the first thing that sprang to mind and i had to put the book down because I actually couldn't stop laughing. *chuckles*

    Also, you need to read more Greek mythology! 'tis AWESOME!

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  6. I'm reading this now, but I'm only on like, page 30 :L It's good so far though! It sounds so great, I can't wait to read more and see what happens :) Great review!
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