Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Starcrossed
by Josephine Angelini

Genre: Young Adult | Fantasy

Helen Hamilton has always tried to hide how different she is—no easy feat on an island as small as Nantucket, and only getting harder as she finds herself haunted by hallucinations and vivid nightmares.

It's not until she crosses paths with Lucas Delos at school that Helen's true heritage is finally revealed. Yet even as Lucas helps her awaken to her startling powers, they can never be together—not unless they can break free from the tragic destiny the Three Fates have in store.

Helen begins her school year with frighteningly realistic dreams by night and constantly annoying gossip by day about the new Delos family in town. Upon meeting Lucas Delos for the first time at school, Helen alarmingly attacks him in hopes to kill (acting totally opposite of her usual peaceful temperament) all becasue of three insanity educing spirits (i.e. Fates) that agonizingly cry for his death. Things begin to quickly spiral downhill for Helen when she personally gets attached (more than once!) by an unknown assailant and ancient mythology beings to play an important part in her every day actions. 'Keeping your enemies close' is a motto Helen holds to dearly and thus begins to learn about just what (crazy powers!) she can use from the Delos family all while trying to figure out about her mother and just who she really is.

A LOVE written in the stars . . .
A FEUD started in ancient Greece . . .
A CURSE not even the gods can break . . .

I'm finding a similar characteristic that many young adult novels are recently sharing: single children families with a father raising them solo b/c of the lose of the mother figure. About three of the books I just read all contained the same family structure, but all in all, Starcrossed was an interesting read that ended up being quite enjoyable. I find I really liked the beginning of the story best since the ending kind of went downhill for me, but the book really begins quite nicely - lots of intense emotions, dark dreams, family mysteries, creepy characters - all fun and intriguing stuff! The book contains a fascinating theme throughout that will carry nicely into a series and book #2, Dreamless, is slated to come out May 2012, so jump on the bandwagon and enjoy.

Likes: Helen's nightmares are quite cryptic and captivating.

Dislikes: I'm not exactly a fan of stories where characters all "match" up...meaning...Lucas's two closest siblings "matching up" with Helen's two closest friends making this supper-dupper group where everyone perfectly dates and everything works out evenly, BLAH!!! Boring!!!

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