Cover Image: Starworld

Starworld

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Member Reviews

Thank you Candlewick Press for the free copy. I do not think this book was for me. I could not get into the love story. It was interesting to learn about living with someone with OCD. It put my tendencies in a new light. I was glad that the book did not follow a typical Rom com. It however left some unanswered questions at the end.

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I find the concept interesting and unique!The fantastical elements of ‘Starworld’ as designed by Sam and Zoe were outstanding. The relationship between Zoe and Sam was also beautiful. I know this is a stand alone but it left me with a want for more of the starworld created.

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Holy gorgeous cover! This book has everything from family to relatable main characters, as well as a wonderful friendship. A bit of the book was cheesy and the ending fell a bit flat, but it was overall a decent story.

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StarWorld
By: Audrey Coulthurst and Paula Garner
Candlewick Press
Teens and YA
Pub Date 16 April 2019
352 pages
#Starworld #NetGalley
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Even though this book took me awhile to read I really enjoyed it. It isn't the books fault for the amount of time I took to read it but family and activities that were happening. This book is already out and I highly recommend that you read this book.
At first I thought this book would be about space and wasn't sure about it but I was pleasantly surprised. This book is about a made up world called Starworld. This is a made up world that two teenage girls go to in text messages back and forth to take them away from their problems.
The girls names are Zoe and Sam. Zoe is adopted with a mom who has cancer and is in partial remission and a younger brother who has special needs. Sam is a girl who likes girls. Her parents are divorced and her Mom has a severe of OCD and Dad lives in London. Sam likes Zoe as more than a friend and Zoe only likes Sam as a friend. This book was hard to put down. I love the world they created and the way they interacted both on the phone and in real life together.
Sam and Zoe get along great and have some wonderful times together and things happen which make them look at themselves and to make their lives better.

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This book was more intense than I expected. I knew that it dealt with a lot of tough topics but I think it juggled too many things. It would have been a little better to focus on one topic vs all five of them.

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Great representation - I am so glad for diversity of characters in today's books for teens! However, the writing was uncompelling and the story fell pretty flat. The resolution of the plot was a disappointment and the fantasy world the characters created read a bit young for their ages. The idea behind this book is fantastic, and with a bit more work it would be an instant recommendation. Unfortunately, as it stands it is on the list of books I will purchase for the library only if a person requests it specifically.

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Starworld by Audrey Coulthurst and Paula Garner was a poignant tale of two girls trying to find themselves, and their place in the world. One day during art class, Sam Jones is interrupted by Zoe Miller, who asks about a painting Sam has done. This simple action opens a tentative dialogue between the two, which soon deepens into an unusual friendship. They are linked together through the text-only storyrealm they dub Starworld, a freeing from mundane reality. They begin to hang out together, telling each other things they haven't shared with others before. But one innocent mistake shatters the fragile dream.

This story hit me like a gut-punch. Both main characters spoke to me in very deep levels. Like Sam, I'm an incredibly introverted person. I tend to shun shallow company. My heart aches for her so much when she opened up about a very fragile part of herself, and was rebuffed in the moment. I think wish she'd not chosen to hide afterward, but, well, it's an introvert way. We don't handle humiliation well. The more introverted, the harder it is to handle. Annddd, I suffer from OCD and anxiety, which her mum is cursed with. Thankfully, the OCD has mellowed and lessened over the decades since childhood, when it was at its worst. Reading about OCD does generate an uptick in my own for a few days to weeks. Consequently, I'm currently beset by the need to triple check the front door is locked.

Like Zoe, I have low self-worth. I wasn't adopted, but neither was I what my nuclear family hoped I'd be. They had no idea how to raise an extreme introvert, pushed me into situations I wasn't ready or able to deal with, and tended to deride me if I resisted or freaked out. Nor were they able to understand my rabid love of reading, and later in life, my spirituality choices. I wanted to give both these girls big hugs!

Routine is clearly a theme with the story, being a huge part of both girls' lives, for different reasons. Sam's mum is the one with OCD, and it's pretty severe. Regimented behaviour rules her life, and if those routines of safety are broken it causes anxiety, and triggers coping routines. Sam feels stifled by the rules she must follow, most of which make no sense to her. With Zoe, routine is important for her mentally challenged brother Jonah. Routine helps keep his behaviour in check. He knows what to expect, and since their mum is sick, that helps. They later learn they need to not allow things to become routines for him all the time.

I was very glad that things worked out okay for the girls in the end. Starworld, and their short-lived friendship, helped each grow far beyond what might've been expected. In many ways, they sparked the healing within the other that was badly needed for wholeness. Highly recommended!

***Many thanks to the Netgalley & Candlewick Press for providing an ecopy in exchange for a fair and honest review. Most especially, many thanks to Candlewick Press for the lovely hardcopy. Reviewed for JBN Blog Tours.

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DNF'd at 8%

<i> Thanks so much to Candlewick and Netgalley for this ARC! </i>

I wanted to love this book so much. I really did. But unfortunately at 8%, I'm already skimming and that just really isn't a good sign. Something about this writing style just isn't sticking with me, and I'm finding it really hard to attach myself to these characters that I just don't really like. It's just not for me.

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This book made me FEEL so much! The characters were raw and real and I empathized with them on a level that made me laugh and cry! I really enjoyed understanding each of the two main characters individually, through their own words, thoughts and emotions.This book was all about friendship, understanding yourself, and understanding how you fit into the world around you. The only negative is that I felt these two Seniors in Highschool were a little more mature than I would think they should be. Then again, they both lived in lives that tested their maturity on a daily basis. Maybe they were just more mature than I was at that age? I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a GREAT FRIENDSHIP STORY!

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Starworld is a tale of young love and friendship. Zoe believes that she is defective and unwanted. Her birth mother gave her up as a baby, and ever since then, she has believed that she is undesirable. Why else would her birth mother giver her up? On the other hand, Sam believes in resorting to her robot-like feelings. That way, she can ignore emotions and blend into the background of everyday life.

I have some mixed feelings about this book. Starworld is extremely well written. I was blown away by the prose and the descriptions of the girls’ quest through Starworld. However, I feel like the ending fell a little flat. The build of the relationship between Zoe and Sam is both relatable and painful to watch. You can tell that there is a one-sided attraction, so you spend the overwhelming majority of the novel waiting for the other shoe to drop. But both girls need each other. Sam teaches Zoe that her imperfections are beautiful and that she is loved and wanted by everyone in her life. Zoe teaches Sam that it’s okay to have emotions and be human.

There are some fantasy-like elements built into this story, but they are minor. The two girls use Starworld as an escape from reality with their dragon companion, Humphrey. The girls set out on a quest through the world they’ve created.

Overall, I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I could. Some parts are slow to build, but you’ll grow to love both Zoe and Sam. These girls are relatable. Perhaps you’ll feel like Zoe because you put up a front and people think you have a perfect life when you’re hiding behind a crumbling wall. Or, perhaps you’ll relate more to Sam because you prefer to blur into the background and keep to yourself. Either way, these two girls will pull at your heartstrings and you’ll be dying to escape to Starworld with them. I highly recommend this book and must-read.

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I wasn't sure what to expect, but I enjoyed reading this. An interesting story with fun characters. Well written.

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Starworld exceeded all of my expectations. Based off of the description I couldn't wait to dive in and it absolutely blew me away. I adored every minute of it!

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The first you thing you should probably know about Starworld is that it’s not an f/f romance. It’s not exactly a spoiler since the blurb describes Sam falling in love with Zoe as an explosion and I don’t think requited love is ever described as an explosion. So if you’re wanting an f/f romance then Starworld probably isn’t the book for you.
However, if you’re looking for a book where the most important relationship to both main characters is their friendship with one another than Starworld IS for you. Because Starworld is all about the friendship between Sam and Zoe, even if it results in Sam falling for Zoe romantically. They still value their friendship more than almost anything else, and it was so heart-warming to read about. A friendship can be the thing that keeps you going, and it can be the most important relationship in your life, as well. So I absolutely adored that representation in Starworld because I think friendships are too often sidelined in favour of romantic connections.
Both Sam and Zoe narrate Starworld and their voices and lives are incredibly different. I was never once confused as to whose chapters I was reading, which I guess is not as common in books that are co-authored, but even so it’s still a feat to neatly separate two narrators. What surprises me is that I didn’t prefer one character over the other, which is something that normally happens when I read a book with more than one narrator. But when reading Starworld I never felt like rushing one character’s chapters so I could get back to the world of the other. The only time I ever felt that way was when one chapter would leave off just before something huge was going to happen, which is not so much about the characters themselves, but more about me wanting to know what was going to happen next.
The story of Starworld focussed a lot on what was going on in the private lives of Zoe and Sam. I suppose Starworld was a very character driven story as the plot mainly revolved around what was happening to Sam and Zoe and the people around them, rather than any one huge event. To be honest, I liked this a lot. I loved getting to know Sam and Zoe more completely than some books allow a reader to get to know the main characters. They felt like such real people, and I think that is the best aspect of this novel. That Sam and Zoe had lives just like the rest of us, and they certainly weren’t perfect lives. The girls sometimes did and said the wrong thing, and they struggled with change. I loved their imperfections because it made them feel more human, and made me feel more for them in general.
The only real downfall of this book was Starworld itself. I thought it was going to be super magical and feature more heavily than it did. It turned out to be a world Sam and Zoe created via text using the star signs *like this*. I suppose if I had known what Starworld was going to be like before I started Starworld I think I would have been more on board. But as it was I expecting Starworld to be a little, well, more. I still think it was lovely, and it was beautiful how much Starworld meant to Zoe and Sam, and how it provided an escape and how they found themselves there.
All in all, Starworld was a lovely book. It was quiet and real. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a strong character driven story with a focus on friendship and how that can pull you through some of the hardest moments in life.
© 2019, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

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So thankful to have received an ARC of this via NetGalley. This was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and it didn't disappoint me!

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Sam is the artistic girl that keeps to herself and Zoe is the popular girl at the front of the stage. Their friendship begins by accident when Zoe asks Sam to lend one of her paintings for a school production play and so begins Starworld. A fictional world where the two girls go to find peace and getting away from the chaos and order of their separate lives. Sam’s mother has OCD and everything has to be just so, Zoe’s brother has Down’s syndrome and chaos rules her home. Sam dreams of space but worries about leaving her mother behind, Zoe dreams of finding out who she really is but worries about hurting her parents.
I loved reading this a lot. The two main characters and their different chapters worked so well together.

I really liked Sam although she’s your typical unpopular artsy, nerd girl but there was something about her that felt fresh. Her mother’s illness has shaped her. One thing that I appreciated about this book was showing how mental illness affects the people around us and it just sort of spills over whether we want it to or not.

Zoe on the outside she’s your perfect character but she hides herself. She’s struggling with her identity due to being adopted and torn between her love for her family and wanting to fimd out about her birth mother. I loved everything about her, she’s sweet and kind and needed a quiet space to land and she found that in her friendship with Sam.

The ending was not what I expected but I'm not mad at it.

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First, thank you to the publisher and Jean Book Nerd for the copy of Starworld. Second, there was no compensation in the making of this review and everything that follows is my opinion and mine alone.Oh. My. God. Hardly ever is there a YA contemporary that pulls me in every direction, where I can relate to almost all of the characters. I believe the one last year was Eliza And Her Monsters. This year though has to be Starworld.Starworld is a book about two girls who hide from the world in their own way and collide to make a world of their own that brings out a deep friendship and personal growth. But, this book has more than that. It deals with anxiety, OCD, the feeling of being alone, disabilities... the whole kit and caboodle. I was glued to this book. I also had to put it down. I was pulled everywhere. Like Zoe, I had personal pressure to try and be the best person I can. Not for personal growth but because I was afraid people would hate me (technically I still deal with it). I also have a brother who is disabled.Like Sam, I say the weirdest things and because of it, I tried to keep my mouth shut for a good portion of my teen life and well, I still kind of do it. Her brain was beautiful and it made me giggle because that's my brain too! Minus the math. I can't math.She also had to deal with a mother who has OCD. I don't have a mother who is OCD, but I have a grandmother who is a hoarder and... with my own anxiety, I am scared I will become that or ritualistic in some way. If anything, reading the progression of this aspect in the book opened my eyes to wonder why my grandmother is so anxious. I'm still scared I will become something akin to it, but I am more open to being compassionate about it instead of the anger and hurt that comes with fear and misunderstanding.There is so much more to the book than what I've said. I could go in depth, but then you wouldn't want to read the book. I was smiling, I was rooting for both girls, and I was scared because I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want either of them to get hurt in the fire. This is a beautiful book. It sticks with you and keeps you going. I hope to god these two work together again and craft another amazing work. Final Rating: 5/5Note: May I add that my Whovian self was very giddy through all of Sam's mentions of the great scifi show and others? Seriously, I love her. I love Zoe. I love them so much. Note Note: I also love that there are resources available for all the things mentioned. It shows to me that you guys not only want to help spread the compassion to the readers who don't understand, but you also want to help those who have nowhere to go. It's awesome.

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My Review: This book kind of reminded me of Terabithia. Where two characters come together and create a new world where they can soar to new hights and find themselves. I really loved all the family dynamics in this story. It made it unlike others where the parents of the story are just not there. That was a nice chance from the norm. The other thing I really enjoyed about this one was Sam and Zoe they were going through so much drama and issues and they seemed very relatable to the world today. Them looking to each other to get through things were great. Friends in this world are so hard to find. And finding a true friend is harder still.

I think the authors did great with the issues that these girls were dealing with. The authors did a great job with dealing with mental illness, Cancer, and more.

The one issue I had was that the world of Starworld with all the in book role play was a little much. I think that the way it was presented was a little weird. I think that if this would have been a movie or tv show that those sections were be perfect on screen. But for the book it kind of slowed it down and those parts were just a little cheesy. But after you get over that. The rest of the book really makes up for it.

As for the romance I wished that this one would have worked out a little differently. I do like that the ending was realistic but in todays world I think that it could have ended a little better than it did. That being said though I still did love this story so much. Theres just so much in this story about family and friendship and I could not put it down.

Go Into This One Knowing: Two POVs, OCD, Adoption, Cancer, Not true LGBT

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Sam Jones is a loner intent on staying invisible and hiding her feelings. Referring to herself as a robot, she’s content with flying under the radar until she graduates and escapes her home life. Everything changes when she’s noticed by one of the popular girls at her school, Zoe Miller. On the surface, Zoe is perfect and has her life together. Sam can’t fathom why she’d even want to talk to her. What she doesn’t know is that Zoe works hard to appear perfect. Abandoned by her biological mother, she was adopted by a loving family, but she considers herself a drop-in. On top of things, she’s both stressed and worried because her mom has cancer and her younger brother might be sent to live in a facility full time. Together, Sam and Zoe let their walls down, confide in each other, and create a fictional universe that they can both escape to.

Written in rotating perspectives, we follow Sam and Zoe as they navigate the difficult patches in their lives. Through Sam’s perspective, we learn that she walks on thin ice when home because her mom has OCD and has a list of seemingly random and irrational rules that must be followed. As someone with OCD, I can understand how compulsions and random rules related to them can seem bizarre and irrational. Trust me; I know! It was interesting to see how it affected Sam, but I also felt a little offended that she thought her mom couldn’t cope without her to help with rituals.

Through Zoe’s perspective, we see that she’s not as perfect as she makes herself appear. She struggles with abandonment issues because she was surrendered for adoption, but she also feels bad because she loves her parents and knows they love her. Convinced that she is defective, Zoe does everything she can to appear perfect because she worries that she’ll be left behind if she appears anything less than flawless. At home, Zoe has alienated herself from her friends because she hates the way they look at her younger brother for having developmental disabilities. She also worries about her mom and her battle with cancer, which is in partial remission when the story begins.

When these two characters meet and become friends, they both start to learn that it’s okay to let their walls down and let people see who they are and what problems they have. I love their friendship and how much they learn from each other as well as how much it makes them grow as people. I enjoyed watching them blossom and learn that they don’t have to appear or act a certain way. They can be themselves and people will still like them.

I have a few minor issues with this book. The first one is that Sam comes off as extremely pretentious for someone who is supposed to be so different from her peers. It was a bit off putting at first, but thankfully it lessens as the chapters continue. My other issue is the way that the text messages between Sam and Zoe are written. It was cringe worthy and left me wondering where the authors got the idea that teenagers talk like that. I find it hard to believe that two people would have entire conversations, via text message, written the way that these text messages were. If I hadn’t been hooked on the story, I might’ve considered not reading the book over these passages. Thankfully, I marched along, but these passages took me out of the story every time they appeared.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and look forward to seeing if the authors collaborate on future projects. I think they work well together and the story they delivered is relatable, aside from those terrible text message passages, as well as engrossing.

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[Review to be published closer to release date at http://pagesbelowvaultedsky.wordpress.com/]

Starworld is a slow-burn contemporary story about an awkward artsy girl and a popular girl who find each other and navigate the murky waters of friendship together. Both girls have difficult family lives--one has with a mother with OCD and the other a mother with cancer and a brother with special needs--and the emotions surrounding these everyday battles are shown so incredibly well. Guilt, resentment, anger, and love connecting all of it--it's messy and complex and the book gives no definite answers on how they should be reacting to these problems, which I thought was beautifully realistic.

And to see Sam and Zoe come together and realize they have so much in common, and that their personalities mesh so well, was a treat to read. Believable chemistry is so hard to pull off in stories and these two girls have it in spades.

Now for the not-so-great parts:

The story doesn't really come with an overarching plot and so the pacing moves from slow to near-glacial (so much that it felt a lot longer than 352 pages). There's a lot of extraneous dialogue and scenes with people eating and doing other mundane activities; which isn't necessarily a bad thing--just not for everyone.

And I did find some of the text dialogue overbearing. I think there's a limit to how much asterisk talk (or "startalk") I can handle and there's a LOT of it in this book. And I'm speaking as someone who uses asterisks all the time. Doesn't mean I want to read through a hundred pages of it.

My biggest problem, though, is with the ending. I appreciate the authors sticking to the theme of life being messy and unpredictable, but the execution just made me super annoyed.

Compared to the care that was put into their relationship for 300+ pages, everything about this ending was abrupt and underdeveloped. The open communication that was such a key part of the friendship straight-up vanishes in this final act and I couldn't help but feel cheated.

So my feelings on it are mixed. I think I would still recommend it just for Zoe and Sam's friendship (minus the ending), because they are very, very good together and we always need more stories about girls helping each other to find themselves.

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Starworld is a sweet book, told from the points of view of Sam and Zoe. (And incidentally, written by two authors whose work I rather enjoy.) There were definitely wins for me, with a few reservations, so I am just going to break it down as such!

The Wins:

•Holy emphasis on family! This is beautiful, frankly. The times I felt the most emotion while reading is while these two young women were interacting with (or speaking about) their families. Having them be able to open up to each other about struggles they felt unable to share with anyone else was really sweet. And goodness, the sheer love that radiated from their respective family units had my heart melting over and over again. I found that they were all so relatable, as they had their own problems (some very severe) but tried desperately to work together to make things better.

•The characters were quirky and adorable and seemed really relatable. They were both trying to come to terms with so, so much life upheaval. And not just your typical "growing up" stuff, though that was part of it for sure. Sam is dealing with an absent father, a mother with a mental illness, a best friend who's starting to move on a bit without her, and well, feelings for Zoe. Zoe has a whole host of family situations from a special needs brother, a mom who's just gone through cancer treatment, and the fact that she's adopted. Not to mention, a boyfriend she doesn't seem so keen on, and friends who she has been distancing herself from. So when their worlds collide, it makes sense that they'd gravitate toward each other. Which leads to my next point...

•Zoe and Sam leaning on each other was lovely. Really, it is incredible that they were able to find solace in this imaginary world they created. And that they could trust each other with this stuff that was both too big to handle alone, yet too hard to open up to anyone else about.

The Reservations:

•The actual "Starworld" was a little hokey. Look, I am all for them having this cute little inside world. But I don't know that I needed to read all the texts about it? In role-play-speak no less? At first I thought it was a little cheesy, but after that wore off, I just was mostly bored and just skimmed those parts. 🤷‍♀️

•I didn't really love the ending. I mean, I guess I hoped the story would go in a different direction? And maybe that's on me, but... my opinion stands. And I'll give you the least spoilery version possible, still under spoiler tags because I personally hate spoilers but... I feel like this one is kind of big for people who were hoping for certain things from the book, so. (view spoiler)

Bottom Line: Super sweet in terms of family and friendships, but lacking in a couple areas as well. Overall though, I was glad I read it.

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