Starcrossed (Starcrossed, #1)

by Josephine Angelini

[Ashley]

As posted on booknook - book reviews and hot chocolate!

I think I went into this book with my hopes too high. I love Greek mythology and stories of starcrossed lovers, so I thought that Starcrossed would be perfect for me! I did enjoy the book, I just didn’t love it as much as I thought I would.

Helen lives her life trying to get by under the radar. She lives with her single dad on the small island of Nantucket. From the beginning of the story, we get hints that Heleny isn’t quite.. normal. She seems to have super human strength and speed, but tries her best to hide it so that she still appears normal. She also has major issues with attention, which is where my first gripe comes from.

Helen hates the spotlight. She avoids any kind of attention at all costs. When the spotlight is cast on her, she feels physically sick. Helen is also very self-degrading, always going on about how she’s not pretty, she’s a huge nerd, she has a horrible reputation in school, complaining about people hate her, etc. This really, really bothered me. Towards the end of the book we do learn that the whole “feeling sick when she gets attention” thing isn’t really her fault, but it still bugged me a lot. During most of the story, Helen felt like such a weak character. I couldn’t like her when she was constantly complaining, feeling sorry for herself, and generally acting childish. One of the other characters, Hector, actually told Helen that she needed to grow up. I definitely agree with that statement!

So, moving a head a bit, Helen meets a new boy at school named Lucas. For some reason, she has an uncontrollable desire to kill him. She’s filled with so much rage and hatred towards him but has no idea why. We later learn that this is because of The Furies. The Furies basically turn the different ‘Houses’ (based on lineage) against each other. But Helen and Lucas fight against this, believing that they’re actually destined to be together. And so, they fall in love. Cue issue #2.

I kind of feel like there was no “falling in love” phase for Helen and Lucas. One minute they hate each other’s guts, then Lucas saves Helen’s life and suddenly they’re holding hands and stuff. But then here’s the even more annoying part: Lucas is always holding Helen’s hand and making remarks that suggest he likes her, but then he tells Helen that they can’t be together. But even after he says that, he continues to hold her hand every chance he gets. Talk about leading a woman on! I thought that was just so annoying… I would be so pissed if a guy did that to me in real life. If he thinks they can’t be together, he shouldn’t be treating her like he wants to date her!

The last character I’ll talk about is Claire. Claire is Helen’s best friend. As Helen is figuring out that she’s actually a demigod, etc., she doesn’t tell Claire about any of it. Eventually Helen tells her and Claire is basically like “I knew that already.” How did she know? She found out she could fly by pushing her off a roof when they were kids (just to find out if she could fly). She also tried stabbing her once just to see if it would hurt her. At first I liked Claire’s character but after that, I just thought it was a bit weird. I thought it was too convenient that Claire did all those things (which is psycho in itself) and then actually put the pieces together. I mean if I pushed my friend off a roof and saw her “float gracefully to the ground,” I’d think I was going crazy. I wouldn’t automatically think, “Okay, she can fly.” The whole thing just seemed too ‘easy’ to me.

Also WTF at the whole "Helen and Lucas are actually cousins" thing? First of all, I'm really sick of characters falling in love and then being related. I didn't like it in City of Bones and I didn't like it in Starcrossed. I was seriously like "WTF?" It came out of nowhere. Then a few pages later we find out that Helen's mom was actually lying and Helen and Lucas aren't cousins... Okay... another "WTF" moment. I just felt like I was being jerked around and it wasn't done in a tasteful way. It was just a bit annoying, and even confusing.

Overall, I did enjoy the Greek mythology aspects of this story and the whole blood feud, but I think I overhyped it for myself. I went into it desperately wanting to love the story, but there were too many let downs for it to be a 4 or 5 star book. I probably will read Dreamless eventually, but I’m not in a huge hurry.