Dreamless (Starcrossed, #2) in Addicted to YA

Jan 16, 2014 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-science-fiction, young-adult-teen-new-adult, library-has-a-copy, fantasy-sci-fi-romance-romantasy, romance

Overall, I really liked this book. The plot zipped along and held my attention quite well. I particularly liked the introduction of Orion, he was a lot of fun and added a lot to the book. Though I wish Angelini hasn't decided to make Orion fall for Helen and have Helen caught between him and Lucas. I don't really like love triangles. Who knows though, he might meet someone in Goddess. Some tantalizing questions were raised and I'm very glad I had a copy of Goddess so I could start reading it rig ...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Sasha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, fantasy

Dreamless was all-around a better book than its predecessor. Much more fully realized, and with a rich detail of a story that has hit its stride, I found myself even more thoroughly enraptured by Angelini’s engaging prose and characters that seemed to live and breathe. Helen and the Delos family are reeling from the aftermath of the first book, where Hector becomes the unwilling recipient of the Furies’ wrath and therefore must go into exile, lest his family kill him. In addition, Helen must de Dreamless was all-around a better book than its predecessor. Much more fully realized, and with a rich detail of a story that has hit its stride, I found myself even more thoroughly enraptured by Angelini’s engaging prose and characters that seemed to live and breathe. Helen and the Delos family are reeling from the aftermath of the first book, where Hector becomes the unwilling recipient of the Furies’ wrath and therefore must go into exile, lest his family kill him. In addition, Helen must deal with her feelings for Lucas, which only grow stronger the more they spend time apart. And, worst of all, Helen must descend into the Underworld nightly, searching for an answer to the conflict between clans—but will it cost her her life?

Everything about this book spelled out higher stakes for me. Some writers hit sophomore slump with their second book in a trilogy, but not Ms. Angelini—she manages to up the ante and make the dangers very real to Helen, who seems to be targeted from all sides. She’s being stalked by a deadly, bug-like creature under orders from a sinister foe, she’s not able to dream and keeps walking the Underworld, and she’s still attracted to her cousin, Lucas, who seems to hate her more and more as each day passes.

I couldn’t help but feel terribly for Helen throughout most of the book. You could see the edges of her psyche fraying under the stress of each night she lost sleep, and when her body wasn’t hurting you could see her heart and her mind being neglected as well. Plus, with the added stress of trying to keep the Scion world a secret from her father, and trying to juggle school and sports… whew ! I do not envy that girl her life, no matter how cool having demigod superpowers might be.

I liked that Helen let her two human friends in on the whole Scions thing. I really think that she needed the support, and besides, nothing annoys me more than when a protagonist has oblivious best friends. They also provided some much-needed comic relief in a book where everything is darker than before.

I really missed Lucas and Helen. I fell in love with their love from the first book, and to see them so miserable without each other was really hard, especially knowing that they weren’t actually related, which was revealed in the first book. However, as much as I like Lucas, he acted terribly towards Helen in this book, so when the new side of the love triangle, Orion, was introduced, I found myself rooting for him more. However, by the end of the book, my loyalties were so crossed that I couldn’t decide who I wanted Helen to end up with more! Luckily for me, the decision will have to wait until the next book.

All the relationship stuff aside, the greatest strength of this book was that Helen gets to shine, going on her own journey of self-discovery and proving to the readers and herself that she is much stronger than her namesake, Helen of Troy. She is quite an admirable character and knew that she should do what was necessary, regardless of her own wants. In a way, that made her the most mature character in the book.

I’m not going to go into detail about the rest of the book because I don’t want to spoil it, but suffice it to say that the climactic ending is worth all the buildup. Dreamless was an excellent sequel that outshone the original and made me excited about the third and final book.
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Sep 15, 2013 Cheryl rated it liked it

This one was a little depressing, but well, so be it. I was a little surprised by how dumb the main character was, and how she did not trust her instincts, it was poorly veiled foreshadowing. I will read the next one, but this was not my fave. I was happy how it ended, yet not happy that they are setting us up for a war in the next book. The characters are not my favorite, but they have built up a couple, and I am concerned for Lucas' character (Paris). We will see how it ends before I start rav ...more

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Nov 01, 2013 Tweller83 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adventure, fantasy, romance, district-book-committee

Wow, incredible, wonderful, intense, how will it end?! Love this series & yet it isn't getting the hype some other YA books get, I wonder why. I am loving this series about the Scions of Ancient Greece being reborn generation and generation and replaying the Trojan War. It is a little more complicated than that and, of course, there is the love triangle, but I highly recommend this series. Middle and high school I think. ...more

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