Book review: Star Struck by Jamie Campbell

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Description:
Melrose Morgan was your typical teenager, flipping burgers and surviving high school the best she could. Yet all that changed after a chance encounter took her face to face with the world’s biggest superstar.

Living every girl’s fantasy, Melrose falls for one fifth of the most successful boy bands on the planet, Cole Newton. He invites her on a date and she can’t help but fall in love with her idol.

But in a world that is full of shining stars, can one small town girl really capture the heart of a supernova? Find out in the first installment of the Star Kissed series.
 
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Review: 
The square I dreaded most in the Reading Outside the Box challenge was the one for "Romance." I just don't read romance books. I hoped to find a book for the reading challenge by browsing the bestseller lists, but none of them sounded interesting. What I wanted was something light, something that didn't have a picture of a scantily clad (or shirtless) guy on the cover, and preferably something short. Then, as I was looking through the bibliographies for the other authors who participated in the Celestial anthology (more to come about Celestial in a future post!), I noticed that Jamie Campbell wrote a story that seemed to meet my Romance criteria.

I must say that I wasn't disappointed at all, which is saying a lot for a romance book. Star Struck is a novelette and the first book in the Star Kissed series. Despite being short, the story delved into the characters of Melrose and Cole thoroughly enough that I felt like I knew them. And to my pleasant surprise, I liked them, which is particularly surprising in the case of Cole because most guys who YA girls fall for are mysterious and/or bad boys and Cole wasn't like that. I also liked Melrose's friend, Dallas, and the interaction between the two dissimilar girls. I can imagine the two of them hanging out and gossiping together like typical teenagers.

The story itself was very cute and on the light side, which is what I wanted. I liked that it wasn't the typical insta-love that's found in so much YA today, even though Cole was a hot commodity from the beginning due to his boy band status. The relationship between Melrose and Cole developed as realistically as what you might find if they had met in real life.

If you're a fan of young adult romance, I highly recommend trying out the Star Kissed series! And since Star Struck is currently free, there's no reason not to!