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Starry Eyes
Starry Eyes
Starry Eyes
Audiobook11 hours

Starry Eyes

Written by Jenn Bennett

Narrated by Amy Melissa Bentley

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Ever since last year's homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn't hurt that their families are the modern day, Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets.

But when a group camping trip goes south, Zorie and Lennon find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Alone. Together.

What could go wrong?

With no one but each other for company, Zorie and Lennon have no choice but to hash out their issues via witty jabs and insults as they try to make their way to safety. But fighting each other while also fighting off the forces of nature makes getting out of the woods in one piece less and less likely.

And as the two travel deeper into Northern California's rugged backcountry, secrets and hidden feelings surface. But can Zorie and Lennon's rekindled connection survive out in the real world? Or was it just a result of the fresh forest air and the magic of the twinkling stars?
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 3, 2018
ISBN9781541489073
Author

Jenn Bennett

Jenn Bennett is an award-winning author of young adult books, including Alex, Approximately; Starry Eyes; The Lady Rogue; and Always Jane, and the middle grade novels Grumbones and The Knight Thieves. She also writes historical romance and fantasy for adults. Her books have earned multiple starred reviews, won the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award, and been included on Publishers Weekly’s Best Books annual list. She currently lives near Atlanta with one husband and two dogs.

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Reviews for Starry Eyes

Rating: 3.9448275862068964 out of 5 stars
4/5

145 ratings9 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Please go listen it’s good and unexpected and it’s very good love story
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I must be the only one, but I found that I wasn't a fan of this story. From the start, I kept being pulled out of the story, and couldn't relate to any of the characters. I liked Lennon least of all, and couldn't understand why Zorie even liked him. There was way more sex and foul language than needed for a YA, if I was in the mood for that I would have picked up a NA book instead. (by the way, I've read NA books that are tamer than this!) Normally I wouldn't care about those things, but the summary gives no warning at all about the adult content in this book, and I was expecting more of a sweet romance, but that's not at all what I ended up with. I haven't read any of this author's other works, but after this one, I'm not so sure I'm missing much.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh my heart! Ugh, I can't stop crying now.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Zorie likes planning and star-gazing. Camping’s outside her comfort zone but she agrees to a trip with a school friend, as it’s a chance to get to know people better and to escape tension at home. However, instead of the glamorous camping she expects, Zorie is left to hike home alone with her ex.I liked how the trip pushes Zorie and Lennon to set aside (and, then, resolve) their hurt feelings and misunderstandings, but the most compelling part of this story was seeing Zorie fall in love with hiking! Bennett vividly captures the challenges and the rewards of hiking through mountains in California.And I liked the close relationship Zorie has with her stepmother. Zorie is scared to share evidence of her father’s infidelity, because she doesn’t want to lose her stepmother in a marriage breakup -- but the way her stepmother responds affirms how much she values Zorie.I was frustrated that there weren’t more consequences for some of the other teenagers’ dangerous and selfish decisions, but that’s probably realistic.Another note: Zorie has chronic hives, triggered by allergies and by anxiety. I’m noticing more protagonists who live with anxiety. I appreciate it. “What's that?”“French press.”“For coffee? Real coffee? Not instant?”“We're camping, Zorie, not living in a dystopian nightmare.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A capable guy is a super hot guy. That's all I'm saying. I adored this hero, and the quirky heroine was great too, just fell a little short of the mark - perhaps because she's a little lost in the beginning -- which makes the map thing so adorable.

    I mean seriously, a guy who draws maps? It felt original!

    Anyway, Jenn Bennett speaks right to my teenage Sam. Like directly to her. It also felt wonderful to just be on this journey with them, and the difficult hiking points come along with relationship revelations...and well, they are just cute. This book was cute.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Pretty much the only issue I had with Starry Eyes involves the explanation/secret behind the breakup that occurred between Zorie and Lennon before the book begins. It just seemed kind of convoluted to me that two people who were best friends for so long, much longer than they were anything more than that would suddenly become so terrible at communicating, even if someone did play a part in interfering, it still seemed like a stretch, as did it seem like a stretch that life-altering news involving Lennon never reached Zorie, not through social media, not through parents, that just struck me as unlikely. But I was mostly able to get over it and just get back to enjoying the story since for whatever reason even though in actual life I’m not much for the wilderness or camping, I love vicariously experiencing those things in fiction, the moment they hit the backcountry and I realized just how much of that would be a part of the story, I was super pleased and engaged. Despite whatever questions I may have had about their breakup, I really liked Zorie and Lennon together, they had strong chemistry and even though technically the book takes place over a fairly short time period, the pacing of their relationship still managed to feel really right. I also liked them visually, it was fun to picture her plaid outfits and glasses and his goth style, as pretty as the cover for this book is, it’s kind of a shame that it doesn’t more strongly reflect a couple with such a distinctive look. Lastly, while step-parents have received an extremely bad rap in so many stories, it’s refreshing that Zorie’s relationship with her stepmom ended up being full of depth and love. There came a point where I was much more concerned with their happily ever after than I was with the romance’s happily ever after. I enjoyed the romance, but I loved this mother-daughter bond.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There is so much angst in this tale that it spills off the teenagers’ plates onto the adults’. Zorie and Lennon were best friends, but then her father forbade her to see him. Zorie gets coerced by her mom to go on a glamping trip with some causal friends, and who should be included in the group, which Zorie didn’t know until they are leaving, but Lennon? Of course. After they arrive at the camp site, a guy in the group gets the bright idea to steal some wine from the bar there. They get caught, of course, and are kicked out, and they decide to hike to a state park their own. A disagreement escalates to a fight and the group sneaks out during the night, leaving Zorie and Lennon alone. Of course. (Cue angst music.) Now the duo that was will become the duo that is, as they cope with all the horrors that camping in the wild can bring. Luckily for Zorie, Lennon is an expert at camping and survival. (Cue angst music again.). Meanwhile, the parents are worried, and Zorie’s parents have a soap opera of their own going on. This book pretty much has it all: love, sex, adultery, bears, snakes, deceit, camping disasters, parental edicts, death, suicide, love, romance, and, of course, angst. The author does a good job developing her characters, and the story is entertaining, especially if you enjoy angst. (Cue closing angst music.)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Again, another completely misleading blurb.Montagues and Capulets- only Zorie’s father had a problem with the neighbors. Everyone else got along fine.They were never ‘stranded’. Lennon is an experienced backpacker, and the two chose to hike. ‘Northern California’s rugged backcountry’ included a lot of shared tourist camps.Now that we know the real story we’re dealing with, let’s get to it!Zorie and Lennon apparently had a very close friendship for a long time before a setback sent them on a trail to become ‘enemies’. The plot forces them alone together to work out their misunderstandings and rekindle their friendship. Reading the two interacting together was awkward and uncomfortable. There were little snips where you can see how well they can fit together, but the book never quite made it work. Unless they were all over each other.I did like that the two didn’t quite know how to interact with each other at first, knowing that they had both changed since their friendship, but hopping from ‘enemies’ to ‘sex-buddies’ in a few days doesn’t work for me. Individually, I love the two characters. Zorie is a planned to the moment girl with washi tape planners for everything and a fixation on astronomy. Lennon is the son of a rock star family with a love of reptiles and apparently Death Note. The other characters are pretty cookie-cutter; jerk-jock, mean-girl, and mean-girl’s bff and tag along boyfriend. They had just enough of their own personality to keep me interested, but by the end of the book they were completely assimilated into their roles and all personality disappeared. There wasn’t a real climax to the book. A lot of bomb shells could have when off, but they kind of just fizzled out. In all the trouble happening in Zorie’s life, the revealing of their misunderstandings of each other, and trouble they got in to during their camping there were easy fix-it endings that left me disappointed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There's plenty to like in this charming story about two old friends, now enemies, falling into love again. Zorie and Lennon go way back, but when they got older, things got weird when they tried to be more than friends. Add in an hysterical sub plot about their parents feuding businesses, and there are plenty of reasons for the two to not be together. When some of the cool kids invite Zorie on a glamping trip to Northern California, her mother encourages her to go. Naturally, Lennon is a surprise addition to the group, and Zorie does her best to act as if all is well. When the two wind up being the most respectful and least deserving to be kicked out of the glamping compound. And I did find it a bit rough to believe those same friends would up and leave the two of them in this California back country with no way to get home. Lennon and Zorie make the best of it and make their way hiking through the mountains to Condor Peak, the site of a star party, to find their way home. Lennon's make mapping skills and new found hiking skills are a plus, as is Zorie's knowledge of the stars.