The Chaos of Stars
The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White grabbed me immediately from the description. The Egyptian mythology is one which hasn’t seen as much attention in the YA trends, so I was excited to see what White did with it. I actually read The Chaos of Stars in one 6-hour sitting, since it’s a fairly short book and was just a fun read ;-). I’ve noticed that my like of The Chaos of Stars is in the minority though, so judge for yourself :).
Note: I borrowed an ARC of The Chaos of Stars from a friend. Some things may be different in the final version.
The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White
Published by HarperTeen on September 10th, 2013
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Length: 288 pages
How I got my copy: Borrowed
IndieBound - Book Depository - Goodreads
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Isadora’s family is seriously screwed up.
Of course, as the human daughter of Egyptian gods, that pretty much comes with the territory. She’s also stuck with parents who barely notice her, and a house full of relatives who can’t be bothered to remember her name. After all, they are going to be around forever—and she’s a mere mortal.
Isadora’s sick of living a life where she’s only worthy of a passing glance, and when she has the chance to move to San Diego with her brother, she jumps on it. But Isadora’s quickly finding that a “normal” life comes with plenty of its own epic complications—and that there’s no such thing as a clean break when it comes to family. Much as she wants to leave her past behind, she can’t shake the ominous dreams that foretell destruction for her entire family. When it turns out there may be truth in her nightmares, Isadora has to decide whether she can abandon her divine heritage after all. --Goodreads
Strengths:
- I’m no expert on Egyptian myths, but I thought that the lore of Chaos of Stars was done in a fun and fairly accurate way. I’m interested if anyone that knows more about the actual myths than I do has opinions that they’d like to share!
- Thank you for good guy love interests! I was quite pleased with the adorable crush stage of the romance and found Ry to be an all around solid character.
- Isadora (MC) appealed to me in her social awkwardness. Since she has been raised in a fair amount of isolation from the “normal” world, it was amusing to see her figure things out. The stream of consciousness sections of writing were also entertaining since I have felt similarly in the past ;-).
- I am not someone who knows much about interior design, but since Isadora is a fan and quite talented, it was really interesting to find out more about that through reading The Chaos of Stars.
Weaknesses:
- The ending of The Chaos of Stars was a bit rushed and a bit easy, but I was still satisfied.
- Isadora is a bit of a teenager when she is stating that she will never be in love and has never been loved. The representation of a moody teenager certainly is accurate, but I would have liked if she had been a little less obviously silly, since we all knew she would fall for the guy in the end. Despite this, The Chaos of Stars still manages to pull off a bit of insta-love/insta-attraction.
- Without spoilers, The Chaos of Stars includes myths other than Egyptian ones towards the end, which kind of ruined the lore for me. We have enough books with other myths in them, why couldn’t The Chaos of Stars only be based on the Egyptian myths? :(
Summary:
I went in to The Chaos of Stars knowing it would be a short, amusing, YA fantasy and that is exactly what I got. While there weren’t any deep thoughts, I liked the use of Egyptian lore for once and found the snippets of myths at the beginning of each chapter very interesting. Reading The Chaos of Stars makes me more curious about Kiersten White’s other work, since I had been dubious due to reviews, but apparently I differ on this writing style than a lot of other reviewers >.>.
