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.
