Review: Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don’t often read Young Adult novels, in fact, I think that prior to Starcrossed, the last YA series I read was Harry Potter and that was easily 3 years ago. Its not that I think they are juvenile or below me, I just am rarely inclined to read about kids, and really that seems to be the only difference between the Young Adult genre and the “Adult” genre, the characters are teens, the situations may not be as explicit as they would be in a book geared towards adults and there is usually a school involved somewhere.

That’s my only excuse, I like to be able to relate to characters, and sadly it's often hard to relate to teens when you’re in your 30s.

That being said, I absolutely loved Starcrossed and cannot wait for Dreamless (the second book in the series). You may be wondering how I ended up reading it in the first place, especially considering the previous statement that I normally don’t read or relate to YA.

I’m not going to lie, it was a complete accident.

Since getting a Kindle Fire a few months ago, I’ve been reading more variety due to amazon’s free ebooks, one of these free books was what I thought to be a book of short stories, but it turned out to be a book of excerpts, great way to get someone hooked on your book, and I was hooked. I think I was left gaping when the excerpt ended, and had to immediately get the book so I could find out what happened next with Helen and Lucas.

When I first picked up the story I nearly skipped over it once I realized it was about a 16 year old who was stressing the first day of school, really, it was so beyond my normal realm of reading that I rolled my eyes and scoffed a bit, actually I think it was more of a snort than a scoff, but I digress.

I kept reading, mostly because I still thought I was reading a short story but I had also begun to grow slightly interested in what was going on. By the time the excerpt ended (six chapters in) I was hooked.

Josephine Angelini, the author of “Starcrossed” takes elements of Greek mythology, and the Trojan war and creates a vivid tale of the Scions (descendants) of the Greek gods, one that takes us from the days when the gods meddled in the affairs of man all the way to the modern day, where we meet the youngest generation of Scions.

Helen Hamilton, our heroine, has lived her whole life on the island of Nantucket, though she has always known she was different, she never thought it was due to anything more than her freakish height and strength, both of which she tries her best to either downplay or outright hide.

We meet Helen, in the days before the beginning of her junior year it should be a normal year but already the island is abuzz with the news that a wealthy family named Delos, has purchased one of the largest homes on the island, according to Helen’s best friend the kids in the family are all amazingly gorgeous, Helen however experiences a visceral reaction to the family's name and can’t shake the feeling that there is something wrong about them.

Soon after, Helen begins to have nightmares, and visions of wailing old women weeping blood, appear whenever Helen comes in contact with a member of the Delos family, visions and an intense rage toward the whole family, but it is Lucas Delos that seems to bring out the worst of Helen’s sudden and inexplicable bloodlust.

A series of strange and violent encounters culminates in a mad flight through the woods and Helen learns more about herself, her family and the Deloses then she ever could have expected.

“Starcrossed” is a fresh approach to the tale of doomed love, an urban fantasy Romeo and Juliet with a mythology twist, with elements of suspense and intrigue and well developed characters you forget you are reading a story geared towards teens and find yourself enveloped in the tale.

I literally couldn’t put it down, I never expected such an intriguing story nor did I expect characters that even if I didn’t exactly relate to them, I was very much interested in finding out what happened to them.

Published in 2010 as the first in of a trilogy, “Starcrossed” is a must read if you enjoy YA books, and even if you normally don’t enjoy them you owe it to yourself to give the first few chapters a read, click the cover to go to Amazon where you can read the first few chapters and for a limited time, you can get “Starcrossed”, an excerpt from the sequel “Dreamless”, along with an exclusive personal essay from Josephine, for the great promo price of $0.99.

“Dreamless”, the second book in the trilogy is due out the 29th of May, and I can't wait, you can pre order it from amazon and find out more about the whole series at Josephine Angelini’s website, and don’t forget to enter to win an ARC of “Dreamless” while you’re there!