The Chaos of the Stars

The Chaos of the Stars, by Kiersten White, was a cute book, but don't go into it looking for a lot of depth. Isadora is the youngest child of Isis and Osiris (non-divine, however), but her ordered world goes into a tailspin when she finds out her mother is pregnant--yet again--and she starts having dreams about darkness threatening her family. Determined to keep her safe, Isis sends her to San Diego to live with her brother. Isadora is eager to escape, but not so eager to live in California, work at a museum curating her mother's stuff, or get entangled with resident hot guy, Ry. Despite the mythological overtones, the book reads more like a YA contemporary romance: Isadora is determined to resist Ry because she's decided that loving someone can only lead to pain. Much of the book is about Ry's equally determined pursuit of Isadora. The danger facing her family felt a little more like an after thought here--long stretches of the book go by without anything dangerous (or even mythological) happening and a lot of the plot twists were pretty easy to see coming.

I still enjoyed reading it. Despite Isadora's self-centeredness, I liked her and her honesty. And the short blurbs at the beginning of each chapter detailing Egyptian mythology from Isadora's perspective were often laugh-out-loud funny. I blame the cover here for setting up too high of expectations--it's so gorgeous, it seems to promise something intricate and deep. A fun, light read, this definitely is. But not a complex exploration of mythology. And to be honest, having loved White's In the Shadows just a week or so ago, I was a little disappointed.