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A review by nickoliver
Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This book kind of gave me trouble from the beginning, if I'm being honest. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it was pretty frustrating, and I didn't really have a good time.
Personally, I felt like this book was way too big. It had over 400 pages, which meant that it took an extremely long time for Zorie and Lennon to even be alone together in the wilderness. The build-up to the main plot just took too freaking long. What astounded me was that despite the length, which should've let all the plot points to be tied up neatly, many parts of the story didn't have a satisfying conclusion. When I was finished with the story, I felt mostly annoyed, just because there was too much that ended in a haphazard, lazy way.
This is applicable especially to the subplot about Zorie's family. Its entirety gave me a lot of issues in the first place. Before she went on the camping trip, Zorie found out a secret that her father kept that could potentially devastate her family, and she struggled with the idea of telling her mom about it. And I understood why she wasn't sure if she wanted her mom to know, but fact was that Bennett, throughout the entire book, always portrayed Zorie's dad as a huge asshole. He treated everyone horribly, was a homophobe - which was always brushed over and he was never called out on that for some reason, despite Lennon literally having two moms -, and basically destroyed several relationships out of selfish reasons. There was literally not a single redeeming quality about him. At the beginning of the story, Zorie did say that her father was good, but the problem was that you never saw that, so it felt really misplaced in the story. Plus, because he was such an asshole, her entire internal struggle with his secret was extremely frustrating, because her reasoning for withholding the information made absolutely no sense to me. This led to a lot of scenes that just made me want to yell at Zorie, even though I was supposed to sympathise with her in those situations.
Over the course of the entire book, Bennett always emphasised just how shitty Zorie's dad was and all of the awful things he did in the past. So naturally, what I wanted was for him to have to face consequences for his actions, except that's not what happened. At least not on page and in a way that made up for how infuriating it was to read about him. The consequences were more talked about off-page and mostly just told to Zorie, and in the end,Zorie even insinuated that she was going to forgive her dad for what he did to her . So to me, this didn't end in a way that redeemed the bad times I had while reading.
Another example for Bennett's hesitancy to wrap up plot points neatly was the reason why Zorie and Lennon even ended up alone in the wilderness in the first place. Basically, they went on the trip originally with three other people who got fed up with them and then abandoned them overnight. There was no real closure to this plot line; Zorie and Lennon didn't confront them again about it. And because the characters involved were, again, complete assholes beforehand, the fact that there were no real consequences just frustrated me to no end.
The romance, the central point of the story, I felt very lukewarm about. While I did like Lennon as a character on his own, I didn't really think that he and Zorie had much chemistry, and so I didn't really care if they were together or not. It also seemed like Bennett herself wasn't quite sure what type of dynamic she was going for? She constantly talked about Zorie and Lennon being "enemies", but they barely acted that way except for a short while at the start. Later in the story, during the trip, Zorie practically salivated over Lennon from almost the get-go but still kept calling herself and Lennon enemies, which just felt laughable to me. Then again, I did go into the story with the wrong expectations; I thought their families would also hate each other - after all, the synopsis clearly stated that they were the "modern-day Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets". But that was misleading; it was just Zorie's dad who had issues, the moms were all fine with each other and with Zorie and Lennon being together. So I never truly felt this romantic relationship the way I was supposed to.
A thing I also didn't like about their relationship was how sex-heavy it became after a while when they got together. For way too long, Bennett abandoned the plot completely and just had Lennon and Zorie have sex and talk about sex and make stupid decisions because they wanted to keep having sex. The entire thing felt extremely gross to me. I was just very disgusted with the way Bennett wrote about that in a way? Maybe it was just me being asexual and not understanding why you would concentrate so much on sex, who's to say, but the writing in those scenes just rubbed me the wrong way.
I also hated that Lennon had condoms with him on the trip; it felt more like Bennett making sure we knew they practiced safe sex. Lennon basically said that he had them because he went into the trip hopeful, but keep in mind that he and Zorie were still "enemies" at the beginning. You seriously want to tell me he not only hoped that he and Zorie made up, but that they had sex with each other (which, mind you, they never had before)? Come on.
There's nothing wrong with having teenagers have sex, but goddammit, don't waste several chapters just on that! And if I'll never hear the word "sexlaxation" ever again, I'll die a happy man.
After the trip, the romance became a bit too dramatic in my opinion. Zorie behaved like someone dropped her in the middle of a romantic drama where the protagonists were kept apart by family (which was true, in part, because again, Zorie's dad was a dick), and I was just fed up at that point.
It also had to do with the fact that I didn't click with Zorie in the first place. She made some questionable choices, especially in the past -like, the way she made out with another guy in front of Lennon like two days after homecoming? And not even trying to figure out what he meant by his message and instead immediately jumping to conclusions? -, and she kept defending her dad for a very long time in the book. I was just very irritated with her for a long time and never warmed up to her.
What I did like about the book, however, were Lennon and his moms. The moms were very delightful, even if they did get a lot of hate over the course of the book (mostly because they owned a sex shop and were a queer couple), and like I mentioned before, Lennon on his own I also really liked. I think I would've liked the romance if I didn't have so many issues with Zorie herself, because they did have some nice moments together! It's possible I would've liked this book a lot more if it had been from Lennon's perspective, honestly.
Overall, though, I didn't like "Starry Eyes". It was too long, left too many plot lines frustratingly in the open, and had a romance that I didn't root for in the slightest, sans some cute moments in the middle of the book. And the number of asshole characters was too damn high.
Personally, I felt like this book was way too big. It had over 400 pages, which meant that it took an extremely long time for Zorie and Lennon to even be alone together in the wilderness. The build-up to the main plot just took too freaking long. What astounded me was that despite the length, which should've let all the plot points to be tied up neatly, many parts of the story didn't have a satisfying conclusion. When I was finished with the story, I felt mostly annoyed, just because there was too much that ended in a haphazard, lazy way.
This is applicable especially to the subplot about Zorie's family. Its entirety gave me a lot of issues in the first place. Before she went on the camping trip, Zorie found out a secret that her father kept that could potentially devastate her family, and she struggled with the idea of telling her mom about it. And I understood why she wasn't sure if she wanted her mom to know, but fact was that Bennett, throughout the entire book, always portrayed Zorie's dad as a huge asshole. He treated everyone horribly, was a homophobe - which was always brushed over and he was never called out on that for some reason, despite Lennon literally having two moms -, and basically destroyed several relationships out of selfish reasons. There was literally not a single redeeming quality about him. At the beginning of the story, Zorie did say that her father was good, but the problem was that you never saw that, so it felt really misplaced in the story. Plus, because he was such an asshole, her entire internal struggle with his secret was extremely frustrating, because her reasoning for withholding the information made absolutely no sense to me. This led to a lot of scenes that just made me want to yell at Zorie, even though I was supposed to sympathise with her in those situations.
Over the course of the entire book, Bennett always emphasised just how shitty Zorie's dad was and all of the awful things he did in the past. So naturally, what I wanted was for him to have to face consequences for his actions, except that's not what happened. At least not on page and in a way that made up for how infuriating it was to read about him. The consequences were more talked about off-page and mostly just told to Zorie, and in the end,
Another example for Bennett's hesitancy to wrap up plot points neatly was the reason why Zorie and Lennon even ended up alone in the wilderness in the first place. Basically,
The romance, the central point of the story, I felt very lukewarm about. While I did like Lennon as a character on his own, I didn't really think that he and Zorie had much chemistry, and so I didn't really care if they were together or not. It also seemed like Bennett herself wasn't quite sure what type of dynamic she was going for? She constantly talked about Zorie and Lennon being "enemies", but they barely acted that way except for a short while at the start. Later in the story, during the trip, Zorie practically salivated over Lennon from almost the get-go but still kept calling herself and Lennon enemies, which just felt laughable to me. Then again, I did go into the story with the wrong expectations; I thought their families would also hate each other - after all, the synopsis clearly stated that they were the "modern-day Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets". But that was misleading; it was just Zorie's dad who had issues, the moms were all fine with each other and with Zorie and Lennon being together. So I never truly felt this romantic relationship the way I was supposed to.
A thing I also didn't like about their relationship was how sex-heavy it became after a while when they got together. For way too long, Bennett abandoned the plot completely and just had Lennon and Zorie have sex and talk about sex and make stupid decisions because they wanted to keep having sex. The entire thing felt extremely gross to me. I was just very disgusted with the way Bennett wrote about that in a way? Maybe it was just me being asexual and not understanding why you would concentrate so much on sex, who's to say, but the writing in those scenes just rubbed me the wrong way.
I also hated that Lennon had condoms with him on the trip; it felt more like Bennett making sure we knew they practiced safe sex. Lennon basically said that he had them because he went into the trip hopeful, but keep in mind that he and Zorie were still "enemies" at the beginning. You seriously want to tell me he not only hoped that he and Zorie made up, but that they had sex with each other (which, mind you, they never had before)? Come on.
There's nothing wrong with having teenagers have sex, but goddammit, don't waste several chapters just on that! And if I'll never hear the word "sexlaxation" ever again, I'll die a happy man.
After the trip, the romance became a bit too dramatic in my opinion. Zorie behaved like someone dropped her in the middle of a romantic drama where the protagonists were kept apart by family (which was true, in part, because again, Zorie's dad was a dick), and I was just fed up at that point.
It also had to do with the fact that I didn't click with Zorie in the first place. She made some questionable choices, especially in the past -
What I did like about the book, however, were Lennon and his moms. The moms were very delightful, even if they did get a lot of hate over the course of the book (mostly because they owned a sex shop and were a queer couple), and like I mentioned before, Lennon on his own I also really liked. I think I would've liked the romance if I didn't have so many issues with Zorie herself, because they did have some nice moments together! It's possible I would've liked this book a lot more if it had been from Lennon's perspective, honestly.
Overall, though, I didn't like "Starry Eyes". It was too long, left too many plot lines frustratingly in the open, and had a romance that I didn't root for in the slightest, sans some cute moments in the middle of the book. And the number of asshole characters was too damn high.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Minor: Alcoholism and Sexual content