STARCROSSED (Awakening) [Kindle Edition]

Helen wohnt auf der Insel Nantucket und ihr Leben dort ist unspektakulär, fast schon langweilig. Als sie jedoch am ersten Tag nach den Sommerferien Lucas trifft, der gerade erst mit seiner großen Familie auf die Insel gezogen ist, ändert sich das schlagartig, denn Helen verspürt nur einen Wunsch: diesen Jungen zu töten, komme, was da wolle. Und plötzlich ist ihr ruhiges und langweiliges Leben vorbei, denn sie findet heraus, dass sie eine Halbgöttin ist, weswegen sie übermenschliche Fähigkeiten hat. Auf ihr und Lucas liegt eine jahrtausendealter Fluch, den Helen unbedingt durchbrechen will, und das nicht nur, weil sie sich auf unerklärbare Weise von Lucas angezogen fühlt. Doch die Schicksalsgöttinnen haben etwas anderes mit ihnen vor, und weben ihr grausames Muster unerbittlich...

Dieser Roman schlägt zurzeit hohe Wellen. Die einen lieben ihn, die anderen können dem Buch so gar nichts abgewinnen, ganz so wie bei manch anderem Roman, der jetzt ungenannt bleibt, weil diese Vergleiche eh schon oft genug gezogen wurden. Und ich kann verstehen, warum.

Dieser Young Adult-Roman hat ein geniales Rezept: gutaussehende und sympathische Protagonisten, eine fesselnde Story, ein Prise Humor, tragische Verstrickungen, große, unsterbliche Liebe über alle Grenzen und das ganze getoppt mit der griechischen Mythologie, die in sich schon sehr dramatisch, aber auch verdammt interessant ist. Angelini trifft damit bei vielen voll ins Schwarze, auch ich war förmlich an das Buch gefesselt, konnte es selten aus der Hand legen, weil ich unbedingt wissen wollte, wie es weitergeht. Zudem sind die Charaktere größtenteils wirklich unglaublich liebenswert, besonders ins Herz geschlossen habe ich die störrische Claire und den übermütigen Hector. Mit Helen selbst als Hauptfigur konnte ich mich nicht so sehr anfreunden, sie war mir zu unsicher und manchmal schon übertrieben bescheiden, aber sie ist erträglich. Lucas hat natürlich den gewissen Nervenkitzel, mit seinem Aussehen, seiner Sensibilität, aber auch seiner Macht. Ein perfekter Charakter zum Verlieben und Anschmachten, da hat Josephine Angelini wirklich alles richtig gemacht.
Auch die große Familie des Delos-Clans, zu dem Lucas gehört, ist ihr wunderbar gelungen. Ich hatte nicht wenig Lust, selbst einmal in deren Küche reinzuplatzen, um in ihrer Runde aufgenommen zu werden und mit ihnen ein Familienessen zu genießen. Da Angelini selbst aus einer großen Familie mit sieben älteren Geschwistern stammt, ist dieser Part wohl sehr aus ihrem Leben gegriffen und damit auch toll gelungen.

Die Geschichte selbst hat kleine Fehler. Zugegeben, man könnte sich an manchen Begebenheiten lang aufhalten und meckern, aber alles in allem hat mich der Plot sehr überzeugt, weil er spannend war und diese Spannung auch bis zum Ende halten konnte. Manches Mal war ich etwas erstaunt, wie die Stimmung rapide von zu Tode betrübt auf himmelhoch jauchzend umschwenken konnte, das ging mir an diesen Stellen etwas zu schnell. Auch übertreibt es die Autorin manchmal etwas, was den Kitsch angeht, selbst mir waren mir ein paar Stellen zu cheesy. Der Cliffhanger am Ende ist schlecht gesetzt, wie ich finde. Man möchte zwar weiterlesen, aber ist etwas frustriert, weil es nicht einmal ansatzweise eine Auflösung zu dem ganzen Dilemma, in dem Helen und Lucas stecken, gibt.

Trotzdem muss ich sagen, dass ich das Buch sehr gern gelesen habe, und mich auf Teil 2 definitiv freue. Mythologie, Liebe, Tragik, liebenswerte Charaktere - die perfekte Zusammenstellung für einen erfolgreichen Young Adult-Roman, den Freunde von Twilight, City of Bones und Percy Jackson lieben werden.
Ich vergebe 4 von 5 Sternen.

I read a lot of very negative reviews about this book but decided to pick it up anyway. That'll teach me! I have certainly read worse books than "Starcrossed" (*cough* Breaking Dawn *cough* ) but this one still does rank pretty high on my "Wish I hadn't wasted time on this" list.

And, you know, the thing is that the basic idea of the story had potential. I could totally see this becoming an interesting story. Unfortunately, a good idea does not necessarily make a good book. It always depends on what the writer makes of the idea, and while I applaud Ms. Angelini for picking something other than vampires, angels or werewolves for her story, it has to be said that she isn't a great writer (yet).

The first roughly 100 or so pages of "Starcrossed" were bad. Ridiculously, cringeworthy, eyeroll-inducingly bad. Nothing in those pages made sense, the characters were completely flat and all behaved very immature, and I did at some point wonder whether this book was written by a 12-year-old. And yet I kept reading because it was so bad it was actually entertaining. It was like driving by an accident --- you know you don't want to see it, but you can't stop yourself from looking, either.

Anyway, it got better after that. Marginally. See, it seems that after those 100 or so pages Ms. Angelini finally remembered that characterization should actually be part of a book. Any book. So she tried to give her characters more depth --- which worked to a degree. I was able to relate to the characters a little more but they still did remain pretty one-dimensional throughout the entire book.

The main protagonist in "Starcrossed" is a teenage girl named Helen Hamilton who lives with her father on the beautiful island of Nantucket. She's tall, blonde, and very beautiful. Over the course of the beginning of the book we find out that Helen has quite a few abilities --- she's super strong and super fast, she has incredible hearing, she can fly, she can generate lightning ... oh, and did I mention that she can't be hurt by *any* weapon??? Really, it was just a *little* too much for my taste.

Now with all those abilities you'd think Helen would be one tough, confident, kick-ass girl, but no --- she's actually weak and childish and full of insecurities.I didn't dislike her exactly, but I didn't really like her, either. In fact, half the time I just found her really annoying. She is also very accepting of anything and everything. Whether it's the fact that she is stronger and faster than everybody she knows, or that she can fly, or that she is one of the Scions --- descendants of the mythological Greek gods --- she always simply accepts everything as reality without so much as the bat of an eyelash. There is barely a moment of disbelief or anything. Unfortunately it's like that for the entire book --- she almost never questions anything that she is told or that happens to her!

Helen is also a very passive character. For example, when Cassandra tries to kill her because that's what she saw herself doing in one of her visions, all Helen thinks is that if Cassandra foresaw her death then there would be no point in fighting back or resisting anyway. So she does nothing. Really? Seriously? She just sits there while she waits for Cassandra to behead her with a sword? Any normal person would have panicked and run away or fought back ... or at least thought about running or fighting back. But Helen goes for "sacrificial lamb" instead.

Then there's the male lead character --- Lucas Delos, a gorgeous boy who has just moved to the island with his family. The first time Helen sees Lucas she starts feeling uncontrollable hate, runs towards him and tries to throttle him or something like that. When she meets him again for the next time near his family's home she barrels right into him as soon as she sees him and they start fighting. Again, she never questions the instant hate she feels toward Lucas and the other members of the Delos family, or the "Why" behind the fact that she wants to kill him. Somewhere around page 100 or so they suddenly stop hating each other --- no real explanation for this is given by the author. I guess she expects her readers to be like Helen and just --- can you guess? --- accept it ...!

Lucas and Helen are supposed to be these tragic starcrossed lovers, but really ... there was nothing in the book that made me think "Oh yeah, those two are meant to be together ...". They go from instant hate (at the beginning of the book) to instant attraction (a little later). There is no base or reason for their love, though. You know how some books have really beautiful love stories that make you smile and sigh and basically make your toes curl? This isn't one of them.

And, you know, talk about sending mixed signals! After they get over their initial hatred for each other Lucas constantly holds Helen's hand or hugs her, he gives her smoldering glances ... there is one occasion where he lies with her IN HER BED (her under the covers, him on top ... sound familiar?), and he's holding her and kissing her neck ... but basically the moment she tries to touch him he says "We can't" ... while still nuzzling her neck, of course. In another situations she tells him that she's mad at him for leading him on (which he did) and then he gets mad at her for saying that ... Hello?

Let's move on to Helen's best friend Claire --- her reaction when Helen tells her that she can fly (and do other stuff) is absolutely ridiculous! So we're supposed to believe that Claire has know about all of this for a good 10 years and never mentioned it to anyone -- even Helen herself? That a 7-year-old girl would push her best friend of a roof and try to cut her with a knife simply to prove her theories?

The Delos family itself had a few mildly interesting characters but they did remind me a little too much of the Cullen family in "Twilight". Halfway through the book I realized that the character I liked best of everyone in this story was actually Lucas' psychotic cousin Hector. Well, he was really only psychotic in the beginning. But really, after a while I noticed that he was really the only one with a good head on his shoulders, the only one whose thoughts went in a reasonable direction.

I hate it when YA paranormal romance books automatically get compared to "Twilight" but in this case there is really no avoiding it. Did Ms. Angelini get inspired (read: steal) from the "Twilight" series? You bet she did. There are too many parallels for it to be otherwise. She merely exchanged vampires and werewolves for Greek mythology and the descendants of Greek Gods.
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Here are some examples of the writing and my thoughts while I was reading the book:

"One of the terrible side effects of feeling as if she somehow already knew Lucas was that she was starting to idealize him, making him more perfect than was humanly possible." ... followed by ... "Which was uncomfortable because she also still wanted to kill him."
--- Why does she feel like she already knows him? And why does she want to kill him? She has only seem him twice and hasn't even talked to him yet!

"You just helped me, and I'm grateful. But I still really, really want to kill you." ... and then he says "This is hard for me, too, you know"
--- No, why should she know? They don't know each other at all, after all ...!

"Lucas was like her. The thought made her stomach heave. How could she be anything like someone she hated so desperately?"
--- Ah, right. And how does she know she's like him again? For that matter, how does she know what he's like anyway?

Imagine Lucas saying this *right* after he and Helen had been fighting to the death: "Damn it. They can't find you here or you're dead. Go!"
--- Wait, a moment ago he wanted to kill her, and now he wants her to run away so she *doesn't* get killed? Make up your mind, already ...

"The furies wanted her to kill Lucas, that was clear ..."
--- Really? Why is that clear? And why isn't she the least bit bothered by the thought of killing someone she doesn't even know?

"Helen had no doubt he (Lucas) wanted to kill her ..." and a little later "An ancient, supernatural force ewas compelling her to kill Lucas."
--- And yet she never even asks herself why ... personally, I would have demanded quite a few answers from someone at some point ...

"If paper could cut her but a spear couldn't, could you make a spear out of paper and kill her?"
--- Need I comment this one? A spear made out of paper ... right ...

This coming from Helen after hovering in front of her best friend's bedroom window and thus "coming out" to her with her new ability: "I just flew in your window. Why aren't you more surprised?" ... followed by Claire saying "I've known you could fly since we were kids. I even pushed you off your roof once to make sure."
--- Really? I don't even know what to say to that one ...
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Basically, I quickly lost track of how often I raised my eyebrows and asked myself "But WHY???" --- it happened a few times on every page! Anyway, like I said, it wasn't the worst book ever, but it wasn't good, either.

In this book, Josephine Angelini has captured the meaning of love, family and friendship through the creation of unique characters and the personalities they acquire.

Using descriptive paragraphs, Angelini has welcomed the reader into a world full of danger and evil, but also love and courage. Throughout the book we gain more knowledge of the main character, Helen, and Angelini has been successful in conveying the strong emotions that Helen feels as the reader also understands what she is going through, so this helps the reader become more involved with the book.

The plot of the story itself is unique, descriptive and mysterious as we learn new and exciting things throughout the book. The idea of forbidden love makes the reader desperately want to know more of what happens between the two main people, and what lies in the way of them being together.

Starcrossed will most definitely leave you craving for more!