Starcrossed (Starcrossed Trilogy, 1)

Epic. That's what Starcrossed is Epic. Yes, it's 496 pages long, but that's not what I mean by epic. You'll think it's too short when you get done. And please, Dear God, do not compare this to Twilight. It is not in the least like it and if I see a post somewhere that says it is I will come to your blog, facebook or twitter account and rant until you remove the reference. There are no vampires, werewolves or faeries-so far. But, there are meticulously researched and well developed characters with plot lines that intersect and weave through the main plot line which is-you guessed it star crossed lovers.What is so incredible to me is that each name used is exactly correct for the character's attributes and what family they belong to. Their storyline is so in line with the ancient Greek mythology I'm just awed by the genius of the author. I checked. I looked things up. I wanted to know what the Iliad and the Odyssey were about. You'd think a Lit major would have read them, but somehow, I missed them. I'm not sure I lucked out.Starcrossed is as complex as any Greek epic, but I think much easier to enjoy. With a large cast of characters and plots and subplots I never got confused. Josephine Angelini took a combination of stories and rewrote them in the present day. And it works, seamlessly and beautifully. And you don't have to have read any of the Greek epics to understand it. You don't even have to remember your Greek mythology because it is well and easily explained.The setting is Nantucket, a small isolated island, busy in the summer, but not overly populated with year rounders. Helen Hamilton is a year rounder living with her father in a quaint shingle sided whaler with a widow's walk. They have a good relationship, ignoring a few strange things about Helen, and Helen works in his store a few days a week. Helen's mother took off when Helen was a toddler and oddly enough took every photo of herself with her. Helen is drop dead gorgeous, thin, athletic, inhumanly fast and strong and very intelligent but, she hides all of these gifts, preferring to fly under the radar. She doesn't even try in classes, only sometimes doing her work. Even in track she sometimes hides on the course so she doesn't finish first or too fast or she hides in the middle of the pack. Deep down she's afraid of what she is witch, monster, freak, animal? Helen tells the story to us so we know what she's feeling and thinking, what her greatest fears are. And what hurts her. Sometimes though, we do see things through one of the other character's view points and it's always interesting no matter who it is.Lucas Delos is Helen's male counterpart. He is drop dead gorgeous, tall, athletic, intelligent, inhumanly fast and strong and bestowed with other talents. But most of all and differently from Helen, he is self assured. He is comfortable in his own skin. He's grown up knowing what he is and it isn't any of the kind of things Helen fears. He's part of a large family that just arrived from Spain. He lives with his parents and sister, aunt, widowed Uncle and his daughter and two sons. And they will all be attending the only high school on Nantucket. They are big news to the island to say the least. They prove to be invaluable to Helen to understanding her ancestry.With all the references to the Iliad and the Odyssey you must realize that this has something to do with Greek stories. But you cannot imagine. And don't peek at the ending, it won't make sense anyway. I wanted to write an intelligent, clever review because I think Josephine Angelini, again, is a genius. She took all these characters from the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Orestia, one I'd never heard of, and other Greek plays/poems and threw in some, no I mean carefully placed some Shakespeare and Greek mythology (yes that is different from the Iliad and the Odyssey) and set it down gently in a perfectly believable setting. And it works. It works so well I can't stop trying to figure out the next book! I'm reading the Iliad and the Odyssey! And the Orestia!I've read it twice now and I'm ready to read it again because my heart is breaking at the cliffhanger ending and I hate those. But it's more that the characters are hanging on the cliff rather than us because we know something they have yet to figure out. Hopefully they will soon. In the beginning of the next novel. You, the reader, should be able to pick up on it easily.So, instead of being intelligent and clever, after four tries, this being my fifth, I've settled for gushing. Gushing that I love this novel more than anything I've read ever. Gushing that Josephine Angelini can bounce ideas off of me any time she wants. Gushing that any writer that puts this much work into a novel deserves to be read. But don't read her because she did her homework and I'm the geek that looked it up. Read it because you love a good story with lots of family and love and stories from the past and cool talents and explanations. Just read it. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. It's magic. It's epic.

I read this book not really knowing anything about it except what the description says (by the way, the description does not do it justice), and I was pleasantly surprised. But before I get ahead of myself, let me start with the things I didn't like about the book:1. It was almost annoyingly reminiscent of Twilight. I'm actually one of the few people out there who's not ashamed to say I enjoyed the Twilight books, but I didn't like how much this book reminded me of Twilight-- the book, NOT the series... from Lucas and Helen hating each other at first, to him teaching her how to fly [Edward running with Bella], picking her up for school every day before they really even knew each other, them being almost needlessly protective of each other, and his family becoming her family [also, the kids of the family are 3 guys and 2 girls, familiar?], and even making Lucas's sister the Oracle, which means she can see into the future (Alice, is that you?). This distracted me through at least the first half of the book.2. The "love" part of it seemed too forced. If you think about it, we are never really shown why Helen and Lucas fall in love with each other, we are told. It almost begins to feel like they only love each other because that's what the Fates decided for them, and if they had control over it themselves they might be physically attracted to each other, but nothing more. The one saving grace in this aspect was a paragraph toward the end of the book when Helen is thinking about all the different things she loves about Lucas and how she would have to get over each and every one of them, reliving the heartbreak every single time, if they couldn't be together. That part was a little heart-wrenching, in a good way.3. The backstory was so complex at times that it was difficult to follow. I'll probably have to read it again, knowing what I know from the first read-through, to understand it all completely.That said, here's what I liked:1. While the backstory is complex and sometimes confusing, it is interesting. You're never bored or asking yourself "why do I care about this?" I constantly found myself trying to predict the next thing I'd find out about these characters, but I was never able to do so. THAT is how creative it is.2. The concept, while explored in different ways in books like Percy Jackson, is original and imaginative. It's not about vampires, werewolves, faeries or wizards! DEMIGODS! Seriously, I revel in the glory of a book that's not about modern mythical creatures. These demigods are descended from actual Greek gods, and it doesn't seem far-fetched at all, which I adore. And by the way, they think, speak and act like normal people... except when they're producing lightning bolts from their stomachs, flying, seeing into the future, lie-detecting, altering the force of gravity, etc.3. While some of the characters may need to be developed more in the next books, all of them are different and easy to love. My favorite is Claire, Helen's best friend. She is completely loyal and accepting of everything about Helen, tells it like it is, and has a sharp tongue that makes you read all of her dialogue faster before laughing out loud.4. Plain and simple: I finished it in probably a total of 6-8 hours and it left me wanting more. There's definitely a reason this series is being touted as the Next Big Thing.

Essas edições né se comparam com a primeira que a intrínseca publicou, é uma pena que tenham parado. Os livros são mais baixos e mais grossos, a capa parece frágil e sem detalhes metálicos ou alto relevo, até a qualidade da imagem parece inferior. Mas pelo preço e considerando-se que é importado eu achei o preço bom. Vieram bem rápido também, pelo menos vou poder terminar a série.

Could I put it down yeah, easily. Am I glad it was a buddy read so I was prompted to read it faster yeah. But I did also enjoy this, and can imagine my young teen self being obsessed. Demi gods walking along side us, pretty please fly me away.

è stato acquistato come regalo di natale! io personalmente non l'ho letto! ma chi l'ha fatto ha detto che gli è piaciuto! amazon sempre perfetta nei tempi

I started this book knowing that I woudn't have a lot of time to read. With kids at home, time to myself is rare, especially with a newborn. But, as soon as a read the first chapter, I knew I was about to have many nights with little sleep, and not beacause of my kids...The story in itself is enticing... The greek mithology is not used enough in books for my taste. The caracters are believable and even tough they are not technically "human", I still could relate.I would recommend this book to everyone who like this gendre!

Awesome