Starcrossed – Josephine Angelini

“When Helen looked in a mirror all she saw were the basics – two eyes, a nose, and a mouth – but strangers from off island tended to stare, which was really annoying.”

All her life Helen thought she was just a small island girl, stuck on Nantucket counting down the days til she went to college and experienced life away from it all. Having been raised by her father after her mother left taking every living memory, including photographs, with her, Helen is beyond shy and experiences serious stomach cramps with every bit of attention she receives. Because of this she tries to hide in the shadows but then the Delos family arrive, and when she first sees Lucas she actually tries to kill him. Which gathers a lot of unwanted attention.

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When I first saw a blurb for Starcrossed it was on netgalley and the first thing mentioned was that this book is twilight mixed with Greek Mythology! This totally put me off and I didn’t even read the rest of the blurb. I’ve never read anything about Greek Mythology and I hate twilight so I thought it wouldn’t be the book for me. Then I saw a review by Zoe Marriott, who also hates twilight, and she gushed about it so much that I thought I should probably give it a go. I was going to leave it til I saw it in the library still not fully convinced that I would love it like Zoe did but then Emma from Book Angels Booktopia told me her copy was on its way to me as she loved it so much she wanted everyone to read it! How could I turn it down then! Two people whose opinions I value said that this book was fantastic, I had to listen to them, and bloody hell, I’m so glad I did!

First of all banish any thoughts of this book being like twilight! Its so much more than that, its coherent and well planned out and Helen isn’t a miserable cow so she’s instantly better than Bella for me! (That’s the last time I’m going to make any reference I promise!) The story was fantastic and I honestly couldn’t put it down! For a book that’s over 500 pages long I would usually take a good four or five day’s reading but I read most of this in one day!

At first I was a bit sceptical, I knew this was a love story between Helen and Lucas, but when they first see each other Helen actually tries to kill him. Not accidently either, she actually full on goes for him in a hissing scratching cat on mouse kinda way and I was like “hang on a minute, how can they go from that to loving each other?!” but man, it was done amazingly well and I cant believe I doubted it for a minute after reading the rest of them book!

As I said, I haven’t read any Greek Mythology before. Never! So I was a bit worried as well that I wouldn’t get the references within the book. I shouldn’t have worried at all. They were cleverly thought out and this meant that the reader was told the references but not in an obvious way. It was like everything was being explained by or to Helen and she was making sense of it all whilst I picked up on the stories that I had never read about before. Starcrossed actually made me want to read the Iliad and Odyssey and man alive, nothings had that effect on me before!

The characters were amazing. I loved Helen, I thought she was a very normal, shy girl at first with something different about her that we were soon to discover. She felt real and I liked her from the very start. However, I have to say, I LOVED her best friend. Claire was hilariously funny and down to earth but kick-ass all at the same time. I love that she had her own little storyline within Helen’s story and I’m so happy about that!

The Delos family were also so cool; they kinda felt like a huge happy family even with all the fighting and beating each other up! I think my favourite character from that family had to be Pandora, or Noel. They were the type of all-knowing, mother hens that a huge family needed!

The plot was amazing with a brilliant pace. I was on the edge of my seat throughout most of the last half of the book and I audibly gasped in places because I was that engrossed into it. I know my review is very gushing but I did love this book. The only problem that I had with it was that it got a bit confusing towards the end, there were some questions that got left unanswered but this is the first in a series so I guess they will be answered in the next books!

I have to say don’t be put off by any blurb which has comparisons of this book to another. Whether it’s Twilight or something else Starcrossed is amazing in its own right! I’m so glad I actually read other peoples thoughts so that I realised I had to read it myself and gather my own opinions. I feel bad for not wanting to do that in the first place but nevermind, I got there in the end! Now to go buy my own copy of this amazing book so I can re-read it when the second comes out!

Starcrossed is the first book by Author Josephine Angelini. It was published in June by Pan Macmillan and the second in the series is due out next year. Thank you to the wonderful Emma for kindly lending me her copy of this book!

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