Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Rating : 2 / 5

Goodreads : Helen Hamilton has spent her entire 16 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.


My review : I'm so disappointed by this book ! Everyone was talking about Starcrossed when it came out last year and I read a lot of good reviews about it. Actually I don't know why I didn't buy this book sooner. And then two weeks ago I was watching the movie Troy (for the 100000 times) and wanted to read something with Greek mythology and I found Starcrossed that was described as a "Percy Jackson for girls" so I ordered it. Perhaps my expectations were too high... What I didn't like in this book was the writing, how the plot was evolving and the characters. So yes there was a lot of negative points for me. I didn't like the writing. I found it too easy even too familiar sometimes. It wasn't well written. I know that it's kind of harsh to say that but it reminded me of the kind of writing in fanfiction. Then there was the plot. The actions were always the same and it was pretty boring sometimes (particularly when they were in high school, or eating at home...). The beginning was really cliché. The heroine who is shy and don't know how beautiful she looks and always thought that she was not normal. The new family in town all beautiful, strong, talented and intelligent. There was noting new here ! And then the characters... It's not the kind of heroine that I liked. She annoyed me most of the time. Then there was Luca's family. They reminded me of the Cullen family. They were too perfect and predictable and I was really bored when they were all together. But also there was a lot of unrealistic things in Starcrossed. For example Helen's father who have no clue of what's happenning to his daughter (how very convenient he is away or busy when big things happens) and Helen's friends Matt and Claire (and again these two characters were very cliché) who understand her nature too easily and quickly. I wasn't thrilled by all the different romances. I thought that I was going to discover an epic romance represernted by Lucas and Helen but... it wasn't the case.
However I did like a few things in Starcrossed. This idea of the story was actually really original and unique. The author gave us a rich and interesting link with Greek mythology. I liked the idea of Scions demi-gods and the history of Paris and Helen always repeating through generations, the Furies, her dreams in Hades... I also liked the part at the beginning when Helen hated the Delos family and couldn't bear to be near them.
If the writing and plot were better and if I was attached to the character I would be reading the next book because I really liked all this historical and mythologic background. But I read the summary for the second book Dreamless and saw that there is going to be a love triangle introduced so I really think that i'm not going to read it because of all that.
I'm actually really surprised that I didn't like this book after Arya from Sea of Pages told me on twitter that the author got a lot of money in advance for this book (and on the other hand the same publisher dropped some authors because of budget cuts). You can read more about this deal here.