Review: Stargazer

Title: Stargazer
Author: Claudia Gray
Page Count: 329 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: paranormal romance, young adult
Copy for review compliments of the public library

50 words or less: Book the second in the Evernight series, in which Bianca does not let an army of facts interfere with an otherwise good plan.

Bianca's life troubles that began in Evernight are further explored in Stargazer and, as one might suspect, the plot thickens considerably. Though not without its flaws, I definitely enjoyed Stargazer more than Evernight and am interested to see what happens next in Hourglass, which I'm reading as we speak!

Bianca is well on her way to becoming a vampire, which is good news to everyone except her. Her paramour, Lucas, is out of sight, and Bianca finds herself in the rather unenviable position of having to pretend that she's over him and ready to ride off into the bloody vampiric sunset while simultaneously keeping his memory alive in her heart. It's enough to drive anyone a little crazy, so when Bianca begins seeing supernatural apparitions, she kind of takes it all in stride.

Enter the guy who is easily my favorite character in the series: Balthazar. In addition to having a cool name, Balthazar appears to be a genuinely cool guy. He has the misfortune of having met Bianca after she met Lucas; after events that are of mutual interest transpire, they pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend, much to the joy of everyone else and much to their own confusion.

There was a lot more going on this book- we learn what wraiths are and why they're important to the vampires, we get to experience what driver's ed might be like if your car was full of the undead, and we get to learn more about Balthazar.

Which brings me to what is probably my biggest issue with the story so far. Bianca loves Lucas. Lucas loves Bianca. Lucas hates vampires with the fury of a thousand white hot suns and would not hesitate to kill one on sight and is in fact in a LEAGUE of individuals whose purpose in life is the extermination of vampires. Somehow, Lucas is able to look past all that and love Bianca anyway. I might have been willing to buy that, except that when things are hot and heavy (PG of course) and the issue of conversion comes up, he basically says he'd rather be a grease spot on the stovetop of life than become a vampire. AND BIANCA IS OKAY WITH THIS. I feel like this is kind of an example of a relationship being in the fast lane to Not Working Out. Everyone around Bianca views her conversion as inevitable and her not completing it as impossible; while I support people making their own choices, I do wonder what she stands to gain by being so contrary, especially since supposedly she's known this was in her future since she was old enough to understand the situation.

I'm totally Team Balthazar at this point. Not only is he, for me, a much better and more interesting character, but he doesn't have boring emotional baggage or a life script that runs in complete opposition to Bianca's. I also completely did not buy the whole no-chemistry thing; seems like they had more than enough to go around.

I suppose Hourglass will shed some more light on the situation; for my part, this was a fun, quick read for my lunch breaks and a fun series for anyone looking for a light vampire book without too much heavy lifting involved.

Overall Grade: B