Author: Josephine Angelini
Publisher: HarperTeen
Date Published: 31 May 2011
Genre: Young Adult/Urban Fantasy
Kindle: 501 pages
Rating: 4/5 stars
From the
book cover:
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.
What made this book amazing for me is how
complex, very well developed and coherent the mythology that Angelini has
created. There are these little details that catch your attention and as the
story progress you almost forget about them but they turn out to be part of
twists. Like Helen's necklace. When she showed it to Castor and Cassandra,
hoping it was something that would help her find her mother, and they couldn't
see anything special with it, I thought that that was that. And before this
scene, we see Helen holding the heart pendant whenever she's upset, so I think,
this necklace must be something important. Then people around her started
noticing it and they see it as something else, not the heart shaped pendant that
Helen sees, so now I start to think there's definitely something about that
pendant! When the true nature of her pendant is finally revealed, it really
caught me by surprise and I appreciate how elaborate Angelini's mythology is.
I'd like to make a few clarifications about
my rating. A few things were a little bit too soap-opera-ish for me like when
Daphne (Helen's mother) lied about who Helen's father is and *spoiler alert* I
don't see how Helen and Lucas can't be together even if they were really first
cousins because in ancient Greece, males even marry their half-sisters to keep
their family property in the family line. I also can't believe how
surprised Pandora (Lucas' aunt) was when Daphne said Ajax died nineteen years
ago which led Pandora to realize that Helen isn't Ajax's child. I hope that
means the family didn't know exactly when Ajax died. But the four stars is
based on how much I enjoyed reading the book rather than on a technical level.
That and I love mythology and how Helen almost strangled Lucas when she first
saw him! One last thought is how beautiful the cover is, I like how the
model is barefoot on the beach, her dress billowing in the wind, and her face
looking so peaceful.
Cute Quotes:
This book is part of the following challenges:
What I'm reading now:
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