Under a Million Stars by Rita Branches

Let me start by saying that I was probably not the intended audience for this book. My thing is SciFi and this is a contemporary. I prefer my books to be futuristic and adventurous. I’d say this book is more dark and moody. Even with the themes being outside my preference, i still really enjoyed this book.

The characters in this book were all deeply flawed. Charlotte (Charlie) has just lost her parents and brother in a car accident that has almost completely destroyed her. Jacob her ex best friend and new adoptive family member/crush has some extreme mood swings as well as some pretty bad anger towards an unknown event (revealed later in the book), that causes him to act like a jerk at times and a caring friend at other times. All of the minor characters were interesting and important to the story. They all seemed to have a purpose not just filler people, like i’ve seen in other contemporaries.

Well in one word, this book was messy. The writing was great and the storyline, plot and pacing were great, but Charlotte’s life and personality was just plan messy. There were many instances when she did something that i (as an adult) just couldn’t believe but coming from a broken teen, i guess i can understand. Jacob on the other hand, seemed to have these crazy anger outbursts that usually only exacerbated the already high emotions of the other characters. That’s def how i would categorize this book, an highly emotional/messy ride with a few twists as you go.

By the ending of the book, i better understood the personalities of the characters and really thought that they grew a lot. I’m really glad i read this book and plan to reread it soon, now that i know the ending and twists. I’d like to better see how that influenced the characters overall.