Books: The Hidden Stars by Madeline Howard

I meant to finish the book by today, but I failed there.  So I'll discuss what I've read and follow up with the rest next week.

First Impression:

Howard's style is gorgeous!  Since I am a big-picture person when I write, and do all my tweaking after the fact, I am particularly enamored of writing styles that maximize word choice and achieve a sort of lyrical quality.


The oh-so-careful wording and sentence structure carried me very easily into her Celtic-inspired world.  In a genre where the "big destiny" to take down the bad guy is losing popularity, Howard still manages to pull of the old story form without a glitch.  I am feeling in no way that this story is something I have ready a bazillion times before.  


Rather, I feel that with her conscious story-crafting that I'm walking into a brand new legend.  


Though, because it is a modern tale and not an ancient one, I'm expecting some pretty big plot twists.  With a curse, a Destiny, and Immortals, I'm ready for a big story, and still learning who my main characters are 50 pages in (sorry, haven't gotten too far yet).  But I have gotten far enough to have a feel for the world, story's direction, and who I wanted my main character to be.  Which--since I'm with her right now, first time from this character's perspective, I think Howard planted that interest effectively.


Next week I'll elaborate on this, and look at the characters and plot (a touch) -- I'll do some vague summaries, probably, so I don't spoil anything for anyone interested in reading it :)