Review: Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

How do you defy destiny?

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.

I won this book in a giveaway over at Books for Bears about five months back, but only received it yesterday as the UK release date wasn't till a few days ago. Maybe I overhyped it because I had been waiting a while but it wasn't as fantastic as I expected.


Thats not to say I didn't enjoy it, the book kept me reading. I wasn't on my toes, like I expected to be but I still enjoyed the storyline and the characters were pretty good, so yeah, we'll start with the characters.


Our main character is Helen Hamilton, nickname Lennie. She is likeable enough but is described as gorgeous and wonderful and good at everything! She has powers that are unimaginable and is uber strong. I liekd her character itself, how she was characterised and how she acted but she seemed too flawless, which stops her from becoming relateable. Theres Lucas who is also gorgeous, but he does have a few flaws, in the way he acts and that makes him quite likeable, he never became literary eyecandy for me, but i still enjoyed his part in the story. There are a few minor characters as well that I liked, such as Noel, Lucas's mum who I liked because she was nice and homely, and his Aunt Pandora who is just mystic. I liked his cousins and brothers and sisters as well, especially Cassandra but I'll leave you to read the book and figure out why.


The story was quite original and it's a breath of fresh air to read something and not recognise all of the plot lines. I also enjoyed that it was a two person romance and not a triangle, which is lovely to read, the romance developed at a decent pace, considering they wanted to ripn eachothers throats out at the beginning and I loved reading it. Theres also a (slightly predictable) twist at the end, leaving a bit of a cliffhanger, which seems as though it was ripped from another famous urban fantasy series.


The pacing for the whole book itself is fantastic, most of it was great pacing (not too fast, not too slow), which kept me interesting. the end seemed slightly rushed, but I suppose thats overlookable.


So why didn't I LOVE this book? A few reasons, really. Firstly, the almost flawless heroine. If the book is set in 'the real world', I like to read books where I can relate to the heroine and I couldn't really relate to Helen. Second, Angelini didn't develop the plot in a convincing way. Lets see, without spoilers there are a few twists that Angelini made totally obvious from an early point and there are parts where she'll try and cover up a plot-hole with one sentence which is really unbelievable and seems quite sloppy, it seems as though she rushed it a little.


I will be reading the sequel, as all in all, I did enjoy the novel. it wasn't Amazing to the point where I couldn't put it down, but I was absorbed.


I can't decide the rating for this one!


I'm going to give it;


Overall rating:  B-

Stand alone/series: First in a series

Released: June 3rd 2011 (Paperback)

Publisher: Macmillan Childrens

Pages: 528

Book obtained via: Won