Book Review: Starcrossed

Title: Starcrossed.
Author: Josephine Angelini.
Series: Yes, #1.
Pages: 487.
Source: Purchased.
Publisher: Harperteen.
Published Date: May 31, 2011.
Links:
Goodreads.
Barnes and Noble.

Summary:

"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."

My Thoughts:

Let's all just take a second to admire this B-E-A-UTIFUL cover! Could it be anymore shiny? Love it, and love that the rest of the trilogy are just a pretty as this one. They look amazing on my white bookshelf! This cover and the fact that the story included mythology is what sucker me in, good job Angelini! YOU ROCK!

Helen and her dad have been living an average life on the island of Nantucket (there's a HUGE grin on my face right now!), except for the fact that Helen is extremely pretty, fast and strong. She spends her free time running track, beating everyone by minutes, and helping her dad in the general store lifting heavy boxes. The only thing Helen has to remind her of her mother, is a heart shaped necklace that she wears everyday; Helen's mother left the two of them, when she was pretty young, and she doesn't know very much about her.

Life is good...until a new family moves onto the island, the Delos family from Spain. And whenever she comes across one of its members, this extreme anger washes over Helen, and she finds herself wanting to hurt them. Not sure why, but at one point she even gets into a fist fight in the school hallways with Lucas Delos.

While she spends most of her time at school trying to avoid any of the Delos family, Helen's been struggling with different problems at home. She goes to bed normally, but has nightmares of dark haired women, crying tears of blood. In the morning Helen wakes up with bloody feet and mud all over her, and her bed. She's not sure why this is happening to her. Where is she going? Why are her feet bloody?

With these nightmares and with this explainable feeling towards Lucas, Helen starts to question everything she's ever thought she's know. Soon she becomes close to Lucas and the Delos family and is ready to learn what its going on...and in turn who she really is. Starcrossed is a story about discovery, forbidden love, and war.

I've read multiple books based off of other stories, history or mythology, but none of them were like Starcrossed. In many of those other reads, I felt like the history was brought up, discussed a bit, and then pushed to the side, to move onto whatever the author had planned. But Josephine Angelini didn't do that. The mythology was in every aspect of this book, and she did an amazing job sticking to it. She even incorporated the houses, of Thebes, Rome, Athens and Helen!

Besides the main characters, Helen and Lucas, there were a few other characters I wanted to mention in my review and those are Matt and Clare; Helen's best friends. When things got serious and out of this world, Clare and Matt brought everything back down to earth, and added a bit of humor to the story. I really liked them for that. They were normal, and I felt like "normal" is what a mythology based story set in our time needed a little bit of.

Overall I REALLY enjoyed Starcrossed, even though my heart was shattered into a million pieces because of the ending! I already purchased the second and third book, and they're on my TBR list for this month! I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something with mythology, a butt kicking female character (who loves food) and something different!