REVIEW: STARCROSSED

Starcrossed
Author: Josephine Angelini
Series: Yes, Starcrossed #1
UK Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
UK release date: June 2011
Genre: YA

Sixteen year old Helen Hamilton has always felt different from everyone else on the island of Nantucket. Overly shy, she has cramps if anyone pays her too much attention. But when the Delos family moves to the island, Helen instinctively wants to kill the beautiful Lucas Delos, and she attacks him in the school corridor. To top it off, Helen feels like she is going crazy as she has strange nightmares featuring three ghostly women, who continue to haunt her when she is around the Delos family.
After Helen flies away from an attack at her home, she learns that she is descended from Greek Demi-Gods and was born into an opposing House to the Delos family, making her attraction to Lucas an impossibility.

Review: Greek mythology is inextricably tied into Starcrossed, from the history of Demigods, their part in the Trojan War and three wailing women - the Furies. I don’t know my Greek mythology and I’ve never read Iliad, but this didn’t put me at a loss. Angelini did a good job working in enough history and references to the Greek Gods such as Zeus to make the story real and believable, without distracting from the plot or characters.
When shy and awkward Helen sees Lucas and the rest of the Delos family she is filled with feelings of rage and pure hatred, not falling at his feet like the rest of the female population. If you know me well, you’ll know that I hate straight-out ‘girl falls for the most attractive guy ever’ scenarios, so the fact that the relationship between Lucas and Helen is more complex than that pleases me.

I really enjoyed the minor characters from the Delos family, although you can notice some similarities to Twilight – beautiful family with inhuman strength, the sister that can see snippets of the future etc. Don’t let this put you off though, as in Starcrossed the minor characters suffer their ups and downs and aren’t just pretty faces.

Something I’ve read in other reviews, is that the start of the book is a little stilted and slow and some of the dialogue jarring. This is true and it was a little difficult to get into at first. But as you get further into the story, the writing smoothes out and the pace picks up. There are plenty of little breadcrumb trails ready for us to follow into the next book, such as Helen’s nightmares visiting the Furies, her relationship with Lucas and a prophecy foretold about Helen. These are tied in well enough so that I was left curious and wanting to know what will happen next, but not making me feel too let down at the end because I was left without answers.

Slow to start, Starcrossed is worth persevering for: a delight of Greek mythological proportions.


Rating: 3.5*

REVIEW: FOREVER (WOLVES OF MERCY FALLS #3)

There are writers that create magic, and there are series and characters that hook you in. The Wolves of Mercy Falls is one of those series…

Forever
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: Yes, Wolves of Mercy Falls series #3
UK Publisher: Scholastic
UK release date: July 2011
Genre: YA

In Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER, Grace and Sam found each other. In LINGER, they fought to be together. Now, in FOREVER, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in. (Goodreads)

Review: One of the main endearing qualities to this series is the characters. Grace is undergoing huge changes, which feel both natural and unwanted at the same time. Sam is accused of Olivia and Grace’s disappearance, whilst trying to come to terms with Beck’s past and Grace’s future.
I love the contrast between quiet, thoughtful Sam and brash Cole, who is quickly becoming my favourite character. Cole and Isabel both feature a lot more in Forever, which I really enjoyed. They fight against each other, both scared to open up and be themselves. I really do root for them as I know deep down they are good people.

Mr Culpepper is one of those guys that not only loves power and seeing other things destroyed, but feels that other people must pay for his losses. The irony is that as I start hating him more for wanting to hunt down the wolves, his relationship as a husband and father improves. Hating him is easy and hard at the same time.

Forever has a perfect balance between being character and plot driven. You get right inside the heads of Sam, Grace, Cole and Isabel, all of whom are very different. Yet each of their stories is endearing and gripping. At the same time, there is a definite race against time to protect the wolves from Mr Culpepper’s plans to destroy them.

Maggie Stiefvater’s writing is undoubtedly beautiful, poetic and flowing. What I love best (and I’ve probably said this before) are the little details that make things seem so real and true. Minute details and nuances that nonetheless make the characters jump up off the page in full 3D glory.

When you get to the last book in any series, there is always an underlying expectation as a reader…for the story to go out with a bang, for the perfect happy ending, or for some real resolutions. What I like about Forever is that Maggie Stievfater doesn’t give you these things in bucket loads, but the story is better for it. I like that little bit of mystery. I can understand that some people might find this frustrating, but I wonder whether happy endings really exist anyway?

Forever is a beautiful, heart wrenching and gripping end to the Wolves of Mercy Falls series.

Rating: 5*