Helen Hamilton is tall, beautiful, smart, and athletic. She is also shy, prone to terrible stomach aches, hates to stand out, and is entirely unaware of how exceptional she is. Living in the insular year-round community on Nantucket with her father Jerry, Helen has always kept to the same routines and had the same friends.  When a new family moves to the island, however, strange things start to happen. Helen finds that she hates the members of the Delos family with an intensity she has never before experienced, yet she cannot stay away from them—especially handsome Lucas—and they cannot stay away from her. Through her interactions with the Delos family, Helen begins to learn about her real identity, about which Jerry is entirely unaware. Who was Helen’s mother, really? Why does Jerry not have any pictures of her in the house? And what is it about the Delos family that is both so magnetic and so repellent? This first book of the Starcrossed trilogy is a fascinating retelling of not only the Trojan War story, but also much of the surrounding mythology.

Starcrossed is perhaps my favorite piece of YA fiction. Helen Hamilton grapples with the ethical and moral elements of her identity and destiny in a way that differentiates her from her ancient forebear, and her struggles of passion and fate take on a convincing cast in a way that supports an exploration of the Trojan War story as a story of living, breathing, feeling humans, not archetypes or black figures on pottery. The heroes, while imperfect and human, are likable, ethical players and the villains are satisfyingly vicious and cruel. There are, however, ambiguous characters as well, and it is unclear at the end of the book whether they are heroes or villains. The episodes of this novel continued to haunt my thoughts long after I finished the book, prompting me to hurry to the next volume of the trilogy.

--Nava Cohen