DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

I was pretty excited about reading LOST STARS as it seemed to promise the intense, deep, and meaningful contemporary YA's that I enjoy reading. I was expecting something with a similar tone to EVERY LAST WORD. Sadly, I got something that definitely didn't measure up. It wasn't terrible, but it was just okay at best.

LOST STARS brings you Carrie, a teen who is still grieving the loss of her sister to suicide. Following her death, she rebels and acts out. She starts hanging out with the wrong crowd and comes home late (if at all) drinks, and smokes weed. At his wits end, her father forces her to work at a summer work camp. The job ends up helping her a lot and so does Dean -- a temporary neighbor she encounters that helps to pull her out of her destructive cycle of behavior.

Honestly, I just didn't really feel for Carrie, probably because I didn't like her much. I don't know why. It wasn't her behavior necessarily, as I've read plenty of YA's with self-destructive characters that I have loved -- GIRL IN PIECES, to name one-- but her character and the book just missed the mark for me. I think this lacked substantial character development, for one.

Some people might really enjoy this book. It just wasn't for me. I would recommend reading the full sample to help determine if it's for you.

Sadly I didn't login in time to download the title before it was archived. Looked so good too!

Beautiful book about a teen who struggles with a dark secret on top of multiple hardships. The book really captured my attention from the get go, I was dying to learn what happened to Carrie as her story unfolded. You really fall in love with the main character and her support group. I couldn't put the book down - I just wanted to be there with her to help her on her journey and make sure she was okay. Great read! I highly recommend it.

I will be reviewing this book shortly on my blog. I will include the author and the publisher in the Twitter link.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This is a YA book set in the 1980s following Carrie whose older sister has died, her family and their struggles to come to terms with what has happened.

This is a slow burn of a book, I'll admit that it took me a long time to read it as I kept putting it down and then coming back to it. Not a lot of action happens, this book is much more about character development and is very character driven rather than plot driven. 

 Carrie has spiralled away from being very bright, hard - working student to taking drugs, partying and disobeying her fathers rules. She is initially a very difficult character to like, she has very little respect for the job that has been given and the people that she works with. However, throughout the course of the book we do see her develop and change and begin to come to terms with what has happened.

I felt that Carrie's mother was an area that perhaps needed to be explored more, and alongside this there were other plot points that happened that were shocking but were merely mentioned, and then not really spoken about again (for example the violent incident with her younger sister Rosie). Therefore, I felt that if these areas had been explored slightly deeper then the book may have been slightly more gripping, especially as some elements of the book were quite boring. I didn't need to read so may pages about a room being soundproofed... 

It felt like this book covered some very important topics, grief in many forms and seeing a family trying to cope with a loss that they all feel guilty for. However, I feel that there were some topics and themes that were mentioned, but not really explored. For example, incidents occurring in Dean's past. 

I didn't really feel a connection to any of the characters, and I feel that a book that has such an emotional undertone needs you to connect to the characters in order to enjoy it. I did however like that the love interest was slow burning and that he wasn't put in there simply to 'save' the main character. There were also lots of 80's music references and Carrie is also very interested in Astronomy which added a unique element (especially if you are a fan of either of these things!)

At the end, I hadn't disliked this book and I hadn't fallen completely in love with it. Instead I'd just finished it, enjoyed parts of it, but at the end of the day just thought it was okay.

Nice read and easy to follow story line. Look forward to reading more from this author