[Review] Goddess by Josephine Angelini

Goddess by Josephine Angelini
Starcrossed #3
Published May 28th, 2013
HarperTeen
Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:After accidentally unleashing the gods from their captivity on Olympus, Helen must find a way to re-imprison them without starting a devastating war. But the gods are angry, and their thirst for blood already has a body count.To make matters worse, the Oracle reveals that a diabolical Tyrant is lurking among them, which drives a wedge between the once-solid group of friends. As the gods use the Scions against one another, Lucas’s life hangs in the balance. Still unsure whether she loves him or Orion, Helen is forced to make a terrifying decision, for war is coming to her shores.In Josephine Angelini’s compelling conclusion to the masterfully woven Starcrossed trilogy, a goddess must rise above it all to change a destiny that’s been written in the stars. With worlds built just as fast as they crumble, love and war collide in an all-out battle that will leave no question unanswered and no heart untouched.

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Review

My thoughts:

Warning: This is the third and last installment in the Starcrossed trilogy. If you haven't read the previous books in this series, I strongly advice you to go read them first before reading this review, because you might get spoiled. 

This is a decent conclusion to the amazing world of Starcrossed. And that is precisely what I always loved most about this series, the world and the mythology element surrounding the story which is predominant in this last book to my delight.

This installment focuses primarily in figuring out the ancient prophecy that's been repeating itself for several Scion generations. So, our characters are trying to find out who the hell is the Tyrant and which of the other roles the rest of them have to play. The other roles available besides the Tyrant are: The Hero, the Lover, The Shield, and The Warrior.

This series was always kind of different for me, because I think this is the first time that I really enjoy a trilogy where I find the main characters kind of unappealing and unintentionally funny. The thing is that every plot line surrounding the mythology and the prophecies was great, but every time the plot took a turn for the development of a character and such I found it absurd. 

For example, how in the world is it possible that no one in the whole Delos family is capable of doing math! Lucas and Helen could've been together at least since the middle of book 2, but oh no! They're all too busy to do math and figure out that it's impossible for them to be cousins. If you have time to brush your teeth, you have time to do simple math, no excuses! 

Then, there's Jason, who used to be one of my favorite characters in book one, now he HAS to be bipolar, because I can't find any other explanation for his behavior. In book one, he was the nicest, in book two he wanted nothing to do with Helen for no apparent reason, and now he's pissed because other people are pulling apart from Helen and can't understand how they can call themselves their friends. REALLY? Make up your mind, goddammit!

And what is it with Lucas and Helen that they absolutely love each other, but can't spare a freaking minute to actually talk about what they're going to do, and both have to rush to do something incredible stupid without listening to the other first. It's ridiculous! Half of their problems would've been solved in like book one if they just talked to each other.

And of course, the insta-love justified by the prophecies is everywhere. Now Hector and Cassandra fall in love after a few glances with their respective "significant other", because that's totally how love works...

And the parenting... good God! I don't think you could make one decent parent even if you combine Daphne, Castor, Palas and Deadalus together. They all suck.

But whatever, I didn't even care about the messed up dynamics between them, I only cared about the big battle and the fulfillment of the big prophecy. But even then it wasn't really that amazing. The solution was way too easy for my liking and Helen grew to be nearly invincible without her doing anything which didn't help her at all as a character, because she already had that "Mary Sue" quality to begin with.

Normally I would rate this lower, because there's only so much the world building can do for you when you hate the characters, but in this case I just found everything kind of funny, the things the characters did and say were so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh. I know this is not supposed to be a "funny book" but I enjoyed it that way nonetheless, and that's what's important, right?

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About the author

Josephine Angelini is a Massachusetts native and the youngest of eight siblings. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in theater, with a focus on the classics. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

[Review] Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath by Brodi Ashton
Everneath #1
Published July 24th, 2012 
Balzer + Bray
Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:
Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.
As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

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Review

My thoughts:

Warning: This review contains a lot of sarcasm and a bit more than the usual amount of swear words. If you're easily offended by that kind of language maybe you should stay clear of this review. 

This was so not what I was expecting. This series is really popular and I've had the first book on my shelf for what seems like forever, so maybe I've been building up my expectations regarding this book for way too long.

The main problem I had while reading this book was that I spent at least half the time bored out of my mind because nothing was happening and for the life of me I couldn't come up with a single reason for me to care about the characters. The whole ambiance is really depressing and I had to force myself to keep reading in multiple occasions so it just felt like a chore to me. 

The world in this story is supposed to be a mixture between Greek and Egyptian mythology surrounding the Underworld or the Underneath as it's called here. It's kind of complicated and I don't fully understand how everything correlates to those ancient myths, because we only get explanations at the beginning and at the end of the book in a way that feels more like info-dump than true world development. Here's the basics of what I'm able to make out of it: The Underneath is kind of a parallel world where time goes much faster than in the real world, and where the immortal creatures live, the Everliving. But these "people" have found that the only way for them to obtain immortality is by feeding off of the emotions of the mortals. So, from time to time, the Everlivings have to take a Forfeit, which is like a human sacrifice of some sort. Most of the Forfeits die in the process, but a few of them manage to survive having lost most of themselves to the Feed, only if you are absurdly especial, you can manage to escape the Feed with your memories and some essential parts of yourself intact.  The survivors are given 6 months to return to the Surface (the real-contemporary world). When the 6 months are up they are taken back to the Tunnels, which is a part of the Underneath that acts kind of like a power station, where the humans are considered batteries of emotion for the Everlivings.

Nikki, the protagonist of this story, agreed to be taken to the Underneath so she could be free of the pain of her mother's death and the book starts right when she's being released from the Feed for her 6 months on the Surface. She is of course one of those ridiculously especial people who escapes the whole thing a little emotionally battered but otherwise still herself. This rare quality makes her really desirable, and the Everliving who took her as Forfeit, Cole, now wants her to become an Everliving and live with him in the Everneath. But Nikki, despite being emotionally drained, hasn't been able to let go of her former boyfriend, Jack, in all the time she spent in the Everneath, and she's determined to see him again before the Tunnels claim her back. 

First of all, I couldn't believe that after six months of being "away", Nikki's father watched her daughter come home and didn't even asked for an explanation about where she'd been all that time. Even if she left in the middle of a fight between them, you would think her father would've looked for her like a mad man and, of course, he would be relieved of having her back and unharmed, but at least you would think he would be pissed that she left without telling anyone, because that's just how parenting works. But no, he didn't even asked where she'd gone, which turned out to be really convenient since Nikki had no way of explaining it without getting herself committed to a mental health facility or lying her butt off. He is the major, for fuck sake! Someone in his position could have had the town turned inside out while looking for his daughter and at least, for the sake of appearances it's what everyone would've expected of him. But no, of course there's no mention of him actually ever looking for her. But now that she's back he's concerned about what others might think of him, so he makes her do community service because that looks good. WHAT? How does that make any sense!?

Now... Having Nikki drained of any emotion for half the book was a mixture between being completely and utterly depressed and trying to relate to a door at the same time. Yeah, painful and pointless. I could at least tell that she wasn't a terrible human being and was actually trying to do the right thing, but that is not nearly enough to make me care for her. 

Also, the book is written so the story goes back and forth between the present and the past which only confused me further. I think that if this was written in chronological order, maybe I would have had an easier time caring for the characters, but as it was, so convoluted and chopped up, I could barely tell if the plot was actually moving forward or not.

Cole, the Everliving that was trying to get Nikki to go with him to the Everneath, was the most annoying, self-serving bastard. Every girl wants him because he's a sexy musician and always looks so cool... Am I supposed to find sexy that he threatens to harm/kill Nikki's family if she doesn't do what he wants? Isn't it hot that he stalks her everywhere she goes? Am I supposed to believe he has feelings for her when he tries to screw her over every chance he gets so he can have what he wants? I hated him, and every time there was a hint at something happening between him and Nikki I was like: "If she actually falls for him, I'm SO done with this shit!"

Jack, Nikki's boyfriend was an okay dude, kind and patient but nothing especial, so I didn't fall for him either. Which left me with absolutely no characters to actually cheer for.

Overall, this was a huge disappointment. I believe this story had a lot of potential to be great, and that's what kept me reading until the end, but even if the concepts were unique and interesting ones, the execution didn't do justice to the ideas and the end result wasn't anywhere near what could have been. I respect that other people have found this book worth their time, but I would have rather spend my time reading something else. I can't say I'd recommend it, because it's just not my thing and I'm not going to continue this series.

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About the author

Brodi Ashton writes Young Adult novels. She lives for chocolate covered cinnamon bears. She loves Diet Coke. Her debut book EVERNEATH (the first in a trilogy) came out January 24, 2012 with Balzer and Bray (HarperCollins). The sequel EVERBOUND came out January 22, 2013 and the final installment, EVERTRUE, came out January of 2014. All three are available in paperback.

[Review] Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

Dreamless by Josephine Angelini
Starcrossed #1
Published May 29th, 2012
HarperTeen
Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:

Can true love be forgotten?

As the only scion who can descend into the Underworld, Helen Hamilton has been given a nearly impossible task. By night she wanders through Hades, trying to stop the endless cycle of revenge that has cursed her family. By day she struggles to overcome the fatigue that is rapidly eroding her sanity. Without Lucas by her side, Helen is not sure she has the strength to go on.

Just as Helen is pushed to her breaking point, a mysterious new Scion comes to her rescue. Funny and brave, Orion shields her from the dangers of the Underworld. But time is running out. A ruthless foe plots against them, and the Furies' cry for blood is growing louder.

As the ancient Greek world collides with the mortal one, Helen's sheltered life on Nantucket descends into chaos. But the hardest task of all will be forgetting Lucas Delos.

Josephine Angelini's compelling saga becomes ever more intricate and spellbinding as an unforgettable love triangle emerges and the eternal cycle of revenge intensifies. Eagerly awaited, this sequel to the internationally bestselling Starcrossed delivers a gritty, action-packed love story that exceeds all expectations.

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Review

My thoughts:

This book was better than the first one in some aspects but there's still some issues that prevent me from giving it the max rating. 

I'm really loving this take on Greek mythology, it's so complex and rich with details that I'm completely fascinated by the world.

Helen has grown a bit on me, but I still struggled with the first half of this book because of all of her mopping around feeling sorry for herself. In this book, Helen has to go in a quest to the Underworld, because she's the only one who can free the Scions from the furies. But the Underworld is taking a toll on her and she's getting sicker every day from lack of proper rest. It doesn't really help that most of the people in her life are acting like assholes towards her.

I hated the way Jason was always on Helen's case. I really liked him in the first book, he was really supportive of her before and seemed like an overall nice guy. But in Dreamless, he blamed her for everything that was happening like she even had a choice in the matter. He blamed her for Claire being a part of their world even though he clearly couldn't leave the mortal girl alone. 

If I'm being completely honest, I hated the way most of the Delos family was behaving toward Helen. They were really patronizing, always pretending they were doing more than they were actually doing, so they could judge Helen and tell her she wasn't trying hard enough to stay on task because she allowed herself to get distracted by Lucas. And Lucas is showing his darkest side in this book, which of course is driving Helen crazy. 

I don't really know if I felt like everyone was being kind of cruel towards Helen just because I was reading from her point of view and the girl wouldn't stop complaining about it or if it was actually that they were being awful to her. I suppose it doesn't help that her own mother was a complete bitch and the one time she showed up was when everything had already gone to hell and just so she could complain about it. I don't know, I feel like the author is trying really hard to make me feel sorry for Helen and I don't like that. 

Thankfully not everything is so dark. At least there's Orion and the new friendship between Hector and Helen. I know they were good for her in a time when she was feeling utterly alone, but it irritated me to no end how needy Helen was throughout this book. She was always needing someone to come save her and tell her how awesome she was in order to keep going, she was so dependent on everyone else that it was a miracle that she didn't curl up in a ball and die the first moment she was by herself.

The characters are clearly not the forte of this series, but the world is so mesmerizing that I still want to keep reading.  I like the scenery of the Underworld and I would like to see this book turn into a movie just because it would be awesome to see the never ending beach and the lake tilted down on a screen. I also liked that we get to see a few actual gods and goddesses this book although they are the most confusing characters of them all.

The plot is also a strong point for this book. It's really complicated with all the prophecies that pull the characters in different directions, all the obstacles on their ways and all the twists, turns and crossroads enriching the story, making the whole series worth reading just so you can find out if they will manage to come out on top despite everything that has gone terribly wrong.

The pace is also very suitable for this book. There's always more than one thing going on and that makes it so you can't really let go of the book, because you're always kind of in a tense moment. Like Helen would be complaining about her loneliness and tiredness, and then boom! She would get attacked out of nowhere, and then the would-be dull moment is turned into an action scene. 

The ending to this book was pretty fantastic and now it seems that all hell is going to break loose. What's coming next is really exciting and I can't wait to jump into the next book!

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About the author

Josephine Angelini is a Massachusetts native and the youngest of eight siblings. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in theater, with a focus on the classics. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

[Review] Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins
The Sweet Trilogy #1
Published May 1st, 2012
HarperTeen
Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:Embrace the Forbidden
What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?
This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.
Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She's aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but it isn't until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He's the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.
Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?

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Review

My thoughts:

At first I was really conflicted towards this book. I didn't even know how I was going to rate it, because it was good, really entertaining and a fresh concept, but the principles behind the whole story didn't agree with me. 

I spent about half the book worrying about the fact that I shouldn't be able to care or relate to characters that were so "wrong". Why would I fall for the boy whose job is to make girls fall for him, just so he can get into their pants and then leave them brokenhearted? Why would I cheer for the girl that despite knowing all of this before hand, still falls for that boy despite her being supposedly a good girl with good, strong morals? 

The thing is... I did. I cheered for Anna to come up on top even when she drove me crazy with her whining and erratic behavior at times. I fell for Kaidan even though he was a jack-ass most of the time. And after I got through my head that it was just the way things had to be in this twisted world, and stopped trying to apply my beliefs to characters that clearly were not like me at all, I started enjoying the book immensely. 

Anna has been a good girl all her life, like she couldn't help it. But there's a darkness in her that's always pushing to get out. She's always known she's different, with her having extra senses and being able to see and feel the emotions of other people. But as soon as she  meets Kaidan and discovers the truth about her heritage, her whole world starts spinning in a completely different direction. She's part of something so much bigger and she will have to fight to keep her soul pure while her life depends on flirting with the dark side. 

The romance was intense. It all happened quite fast for my taste, like it took Anna four days to go from "you're really hot" to "I'm in love you", which was kind of disappointing. But even then, the whole thing was really sexy, there were plenty of heated scenes and sexual tension, but somehow it still had some sweet moments. I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole thing, my brain says no but heart screams yes... you know what I mean?

The world is the most interesting thing about this book. It's very dark and unusual and it reminded me a bit of Supernatural (the TV series). There's fallen angels/demons that work for Lucifer on Earth and are in charge of tainting the human souls. A few lucky ones have been granted the privilege of possessing a human body, and now roam the Earth as sin incarnate. These demons are called Dukes and each of them represents a different sin (wrath, lust, adultery, envy, murder, etc.) and they all have offspring called Nephilim. The Nephilim are trained from a very young age and forced to work for their parents and they all have especial talents for the specific sin they're born into. 

Overall, Higgins' compelling writing makes it so there's no dull moment in the entire book. There's always something waiting just around the corner, which makes the whole story fast-paced and action-packed, full of mysteries, politics, and terrifyingly high stakes. The characters are unique and complex, overall filled with more darkness than light, which makes them a little hard to relate to, but really interesting nonetheless. I'll be picking up the next book on this series soon and I'm kind of scared about it. Maybe it'll make me switch completely to the dark side or maybe it will end with me putting down this series for good.  

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About the author

Wendy Higgins is the USA Today and NYT bestselling author of the Sweet Evil series from HarperTeen and her independently published Irish fantasy, See Me. She is a former high school English teacher who now writes full time, and lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with her veterinarian husband, daughter, son, and doggie Rue.
Wendy earned a bachelor's in Creative Writing from George Mason University and a master's in Curriculum and Instruction from Radford. Writing Young Adult (YA) stories gives her the opportunity to delve into the ambiguities of those pivotal, daunting, and exciting years before adulthood.

[Blog Tour] Gaia by Karen Ann Hopkins (Review + Guest Post + Giveaway)

Hosted by Kismet Book Touring

Welcome to my tour stop for the second book in The Wings of War series, Gaia, by Karen Ann Hopkins. I'm new to this series and I'm really excited to share the love! I will reviewing both Gaia and Embers -which is the first installment in the series. Also, I'm featuring Karen's Guest Post in which she'll be sharing her Dream Cast for some of the amazing characters in this series. And don't forget to check out the giveaway at the end of this post!

Embers by Karen Ann Hopkins

The Wings of War #1

Published October 21st, 2014

Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:There are descendants of angels walking among us. Ember is one of them. And she may be the only hope mankind has as the rapture approaches and evil rises.Embers is an epic paranormal adventure about an eighteen year old girl who discovers that she's immune to fire and any other injury when she’s in a horrific car crash that kills her parents. Following a violent episode with her aunt's boyfriend, Ember flees Ohio to live with an old relative in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Ember's exuberance at escaping a bad home life soon turns to trepidation when she finds out that she's a Watcher, a descendant of angels. While Ember learns about her heritage and the powers that go along with it, she strikes up friendships with two young men who live in a frightening walled compound in the forest. Inexplicitly drawn to one of the men in particular, an impossible romance develops. But it is cut short when Ember discovers that her new friends are fighting on the opposite side of a war—one that’s been raging between two factions of Watchers for thousands of years. When the compound’s inhabitants threaten the townspeople, Ember takes action, sealing her fate in the ancient battle of good versus evil—and the grayness in between. Ember is up to the challenge, until she realizes that she isn’t only fighting for the lives of the locals and the souls of her new friends. She also might be one of the few champions who will make a stand for all of mankind as the rapture approaches and the end of days begin.
Embers is a dark and gritty YA novel that’s the first book in the series, The Wings of War.

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Review

My thoughts:

I'm new to Karen Ann Hopkins book but I've heard amazing things about her books and her writing style and now I can honestly say that they live up to the hype. 

I'm not going to summarize the book because I think the description given is pretty accurate and it's better if you go into it not knowing exactly what you're in for. I'll only say that the end of the world is coming, but it's not quite here yet. First, Ember must fight smaller battles, so don't go in expecting the world to go up in flames right away.

The beginning was kind of slow and a bit confusing to me. At first I had a difficult time establishing a time-line for the events such as the accident, the encounter with the priest and the prologue. But little by little everything begins to fall into place and the action starts building-up and before you know it, you're so deep into the story and its character that you can let go of the book. 

The world building is amazingly well done considering that it's a huge world full with a lot of different supernatural beings with different set of rules and powers. The characters were really multi-dimensional and well developed. I liked the way they toyed with the line that divides what's right and wrong, good and evil, it gave them much more depth. 

Ember is a great protagonist. She's bad-ass but not so much that it takes away from that relatable quality of her character. I really enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes and discovering all of her powers along with her. 

Sawyer is an impossibly gentle soul trapped in an awful life which requires him to do awful things to survive. I won't go much deeper into it's character, because all of his mysteries are better when you discover them yourself. 

I really liked Ivan and Ila too. Ivan was very sweet and shy and my heart went to him for all he'd been through. Ila was a seriously bad-ass character. She's is very cryptic and she has this grandma-like sweetness to her but she still is very active and amazingly strong. The mentor being the one who tell the girl she is different was pretty refreshing. I know it's been done before, but not as many times as the version where the mysterious guy with whom she inevitably falls in love, is the one who tells the girl the truth about who she is.

This first installment ends with a bang, it's like everything explodes and the story rises up to its full potential and there's fighting, deep emotions and suspense. It left me with a sense of closure but still very excited for what's coming next. I don't know how people managed to sit still while the next book was in the making. I'm really glad I get to jump right into it!

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Gaia by Karen Ann Hopkins

The Wings of War #2

Published July 26th, 2015

Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:

As the Demons grow bolder and the walls between the planes of existence weaken, Ember is forced to develop her powers as quickly as possible, and she seeks out a powerful earth Watcher to continue her supernatural lessons. Her glimpse of the future demands she fight the dark forces spreading across the earth.

But her new mentor has his own agenda, making her question everyone and everything she ever trusted.

When Ember is thrust into the world of the Watchers, she learns of their plans—ones that defy the scripture and make them enemies of the Celestial Host. Ridding the world of evil gets complicated when it becomes impossible to take sides.

As Ember struggles with morality, she soon discovers that there’s something more frightening than anything she’s faced before.

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Review

My thoughts:

OMG! This series is so freaking fantastic, you guys! I'm having a hard time reviewing this one because I'm so agghh! Why did it have to end there?! I was dreading those last few pages, I didn't want it to end because now the waiting for the next one is going to kill me!

I don't know if this happens to anyone else but me, but I tend to get suspicious when the book covers are too pretty. Like they are too good to be true. And this book covers are freaking gorgeous! But I'm relieved to say that, in this case, the beautiful covers are the perfect complement for the gorgeous story inside...

I know I'm not making much sense, but I'm writing this right after finishing the book and my mind is in pieces... Let me breathe for a while...

Okay, here we go...

Gaia picks up right where Embers left off which is great since I started this book as soon as I finished the first one and the transition was seamless. The big difference between this installment and the one before is the pace. Since the very beginning there's action and honestly just a whole lot of crap going on, which I love. So make sure you're comfortable and don't have to be anywhere else soon, because you won't be able to put this thing down once you pick it up.

I'm not going to go into much detail about the plot, because I stand by what I said in my review of Embers. It's way better if you don't know what you're getting into. The surprises hit you in the face like a brick and it's freaking awesome. 

I should not be amazed at the world-building since it was already pretty well done in Embers. But the depth it shows in Gaia was monumental. I've not read the Bible since I was a kid, but I still got most of the references and the way its text found its place in the backstory of the characters and their purpose was superb. Everything was really well put together and I can't wait to see how all the revelations dropped here and there play out in the next book.

Onto the characters now... I loved Horas addition to the gang. His character makes me really happy for some reason, I loved his relentless teasing and how he could be so sarcastic and snarky even in the most dire moments. I just love him to bits. 

I also really enjoyed spending time with Piper, since she was often mentioned in the first book but we didn't see much of her all in Embers. Also Timmy! I'm glad they both had a place in this book, because I felt like we should know these characters that meant so much to Ember.

Ember keeps growing as a character throughout this book. Her powers are growing and she's also discovering where her loyalties lie. She struggles a lot to find balance between right and wrong in this book, because everything is mostly different shades of grey and I really enjoyed seeing her trying to make the best decisions in the most impossible situations. She's just overall a great main character. 

We finally meet the famous Insepth in this book and he's a handful. He's really powerful and cocky and unbelievably resourceful. But he's also mysterious and has his own agenda. Sawyer also got his mystery back. We know he really cares for Ember, but there's still just something about him though. I think I trust him, but the thing is that every freaking character in this book made me uneasy! I had a really hard time trusting people in this book. When things were nice and quiet I could feel myself just waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking "I don't trust you Karen! I know you're up to something!". And then bam! Like an nuclear explosion everything went to hell and then there were even more characters and HUGE revelations and my heart could barely take it when it ended. 

I can't wait for the next book. This series is one of my favorite angel-themed series of all time. It's very different than what I've read before on angels and I'm enjoying it immensely. I sincerely recommend it to anyone who likes paranormal fantasy, especially people who are looking for more than just a story, because this world is phenomenal and you won't want to get out of it. 

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[Review] Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini
Starcrossed #1
Published May 31st, 2011
HarperTeen
Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Premise: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.

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Review

My thoughts:

I thought I would enjoy this book more than I actually did. It wasn't bad by any means, but it was not exactly what I was expecting. I think I've been reading a lot of books lately that have an awesome bad-ass main character who is not afraid of being herself and Helen didn't fit in that category for me, so I felt kind of disappointed. 

The writing and pace were pretty good. It's written in third person but it has a feel like it's Helen's point of view for the most part. Regarding the pace, it wasn't that action-packed per se, but it had a lot of huge moments of discovery and revelations and that kept it fast paced for the most part. It was slow at the beginning and at first I didn't understand what the hell I was reading, but the more you read, the more sense it makes. I really enjoyed it and although it took me a few days to get through it, I kept thinking about it when I wasn't reading.

Helen, the main character, has always know she was different, weird even, but she did her best to hide it and fly under the radar. But everything she has done to make herself blend in goes down the drain when the Delos family arrives at the small island where she lives. Because, she can't stand the sight of them. She hates them and doesn't really know why since she has never met them before. Soon she discovers they are the missing piece she needs to complete the puzzle of her life, they will help understand who she is and why she is that way. Together they will embark themselves in a dangerous journey in which they'll find out their roles in an ancient prophecy destined to repeat itself.

For the first half of the book I didn't care much about Helen, I found her to be too whinny and kind of a coward to be honest. Always worried of what the other people would think of her. I grew tired of her hiding her talents, her beauty and everything she was so she could be accepted, also it was kind of Mary Sue to me the fact that people hated her on that grounds. She was way too perfect but insecure about herself and that made me mad, I wanted to scream at her "quit whining about being perfect!". The second half of the book was more bearable because she was distracted with other matter to be too concerned about being beautiful and better than everyone else.

I really liked Lucas, he was sweet and caring and protective of the ones he loved. The fact that he was able to tell when someone was lying was something to think about. I don't think I could be with someone who would expect me to tell the truth every single time. I couldn't stand to hurt his feelings over and over again without the privilege of those little white lies I tell everyday, like "how do you think I look with this completely hideous tie?" "do you think I've gained weight?" Nobody needs to hear the truth all the time. That also made me think of how painful would be for him to just simply go around living life knowing every time someone told a lie to him and having that feeling of betrayal simmering inside him. I would go insane. I think his character has a lot of possibilities to consider and an immense potential for greatness. 

The family dynamics in this book are kind of weird. For one we have Helen's family which is tiny, being just her and her dad. Then we have the Delos family which is just madness like it tends to be when a family so big. But I liked how the whole mythology was woven into the family itself. 

I really liked the mythological side of the book. The Greek mythology behind the story infused the book with all of its best elements. The intrigue and the plot twists, betrayals and different prophecies kept the story far too interesting to put the book down just because I didn't like the main character. 

There's insta love, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry to announce this, but the author manages to sell insta-love to us by making it a huge part of the mythology surrounding the characters. I don't know yet if I will forgive her that dirty trick. I still enjoyed the romance in those tiny moments they were together getting to know each other a bit, even though it had me rolling my eyes sometimes at how quickly their feeling were developing. 

There were other points of the story that had me rolling my eyes because they weren't believable enough. I won't say exactly which bits for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but some of them had to do with the way Claire and Matt acted around Helen. 

There is a lot I still don't understand but I guess it all will make sense when I finish all the book, which I think I'll do, but not for the time being. Just as an example of what's to come, there's the mystery of Daphne... I hated her from the get go, and I don't trust her. I don't know what will happen in the next books, but I have this feeling that she will be forced to reveal her true face. 

It was good enough, it had a very complicated and rich mythological base, a huge cast of characters that managed to be unique even thought here were a lot of them, a lot of intrigue and suspense and secrets. It was a fun read, but it's not the best mythological fiction I've ever read. I'd still recommend it though, not in any hurry but it deserves a chance. 

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About the author

Josephine Angelini is a Massachusetts native and the youngest of eight siblings. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in theater, with a focus on the classics. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband.