This book was described as a murder mystery that’s a cross between 500 Days of Summer and a sexy Nancy Drew. I was immediately excited because I love YA romance and have been trying to read more YA mystery. I loved what a strong character Avi was. It was a good book but I did feel like something was missing from the book. Looking forward to trying more books by this author.

I thought the premise of this book was going to be super interesting, but unfortunately I just wasn’t into it at all. The characters are sixteen and seventeen but they act like they’re at least in their mid twenties, and Avi and Ric are always on each other so much that it made me uncomfortable reading. I found it unrealistic and struggled to get through it.

Will no longer be reading or reviewing this book due to lack of interest in the title, and the fact that the title has been archived.

In spite of the fact that there are so many characters in this novel, none are short-changed in terms of character development. loved the way teenage love mixed with mystery and thriller on this one. At first I was a little put of by the formatting of the netgally copy, and I had to push my self for going on. And I am glad I did. Its an easy read and quite a page turner

I wasn't a huge fan of the way the non linear back and forth parts. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes not. It was a very grown up Nancy Drew type of book.

There was no option to download it to my Kindle so I was unable to read it

Really enjoyed how it was written. The character development was also really good. Whatever comes next from the author should be really great

I loved the way teenage love mixed with mystery and thriller on this one. At first I was a little put of by the formatting of the netgally copy, and I had to push my self for going on. And I am glad I did. Its an easy read and quite a page turner. I definitely want a physical copy of this book for my collection.

When I requested this book, I did not know about the sexual predators that prey on young girls. I thought I was getting a run of the mill romance with a bit of intrigue. The fact that it was a shared plotline with the romance was unsettling. How can you think about loving someone else with the question of pedophile involved? This made the plot uncentered and like the unsuccessful merging of two separate storylines. By adding the romance to the mix with the not so impacted reactions of the girls effected, it was like the pedophile was not important and that for me was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Aside from the pedophilia aspect, the constant flashbacks were nothing more than added fluff to a discombobulated plotline. I did not even understand how a few of them pertained to the story? These issues coupled with meaningless characters were just too much. They seemed to be walking around in la la land and completely naive.
Thanks for allowing me access to this book even though it was not for me.

I guess this one wasn’t for me. I thought it would be more “500 Days of Summer meets sexy Nancy Drew,” but it felt more sexy 500 Days of Summer with a little bit of mystery.

Shared Stars follows Roric “Ric”, and Avelina “Avi” from the first time they meet up until the end, and of course every step in-between. Something horrible happens when Avi goes to theater school, and Roric and Avi’s friends take it on as a challenge to find out what happened?

I really liked Avi’s character for the most part. She was a mostly average character, but also really brave and strong. I feel like a lot of readers will be able to relate with her, and I guess that’s why I felt weirded out by some of her relations. Avi is also Latina which doesn’t get much representation, and her boyfriend is constantly describing her as “spicy” and “beautiful”.

One thing overall I wasn’t a fan of was how many times young teenagers (kids really) were having sex. The main characters were only 15 and 16 during the book and were constantly having sex it felt like. Whether their age bothers you or not, for a book that’s described as a Young Adult, and at least partially Nancy Drew-esquire, it definitely was too much and took away from the plot. Also, I felt like a lot of the things Roric and even Manuel said and did were borderline stalker-ish and creepy.

Especially Manuel.

Overall, I wasn’t in love with the book, but I think it was a good first novel. The characters still needed a little fleshing out, and the book could have gone through another round of edits to eliminate some of the more juvenile sounding phrases. And it would have been better if some of the non-essential scenes (aka the ones where they talk about how much they love each other over and over) were taken out and more plot scenes/action scenes had been added.

*This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I thought that the portion of the plot of this book that had to do with the sexual predators that preyed on young girls was intriguing. I thought that the book would focus heavily on the fact that Roric and others wanted to bring them to justice which it did but the book also focused on the relationship between Roric and Avi. This made for an odd tone to the story that made it difficult to read. i would have liked for the author to have focused on one or the other to make the story more enjoyable. Focusing on both made me feel like the author glanced over the topic of pedophilia. It made it seem like Avi and the other girls involved were not as impacted as a person can be that survives something like that. It might have strengthened the book to have had it be a romance wherein one of the main characters was abused in the past.
I also feel that this book should gave been shortened. I got tired of the flashbacks because some of them didn't even seem to fit with the tone of the story. It was a bit confusing because one minute the focus is on finding out who killed Tim and the next it is all lovey dovey between Roric and Ari. I'm not sure that liked the characters because they seemed immature and their parents seemed to be clueless. I felt like Ari and Roric's relationship was a bit unhealthy. He kept throwing her past in her face and basically blaming the victim. Then he would apologize and everything would be wonderful again.
There was something else that was confusing to me too. What is up with Avi? Why is she so irresistible to the opposite sex? Does she wear some type of pheromone to attract men to her? It just wasn't realistic for that character to attract the majority of the males in a book.

This book was not for me so I didn't read the entire thing so I do feel bad rating it. However if you like young adult thrillers that deal with extremely tough subjects this may be a story you will enjoy reading.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC! These are the reviews I hate to write. I know this author worked hard on this book, but it was awful. I’m sorry, but it was. I was annoyed with the characters from the first couple chapters. They are imagining the other person in every possibly situation they are in. While I’m assuming that was to show how much they love and miss each other, it instead just made they seem crazy. The story line was all over the place. It was flashing back and then forward but was hard to follow (probably bc I couldn’t get into it), and I didn’t feel like it added anything to the story line, every time the author revealed something new, I wanted to roll my eyes. Nobody and nothing seemed realistic in any way. The dialogue and character development were shallow throughout, I try so hard to finish ARCs, but even after I tried to skim ahead, I couldn’t make myself finish it. I don’t care how it ends. I can imagine they live happily ever after because of how annoying their love is, but I can’t bring myself to wonder or care enough to finish it. Sad.

This wasn’t a book I would recommend. I normally do not one star a book, but I unfortunately have to. The literature wasn’t enjoyable for me.

It was cute how these two teens loved each other and were too lost without each other. I also liked the mystery part of the book and solving who did it.

Even though it was hard to get by the formatting and missed editing of this e-galley, I did end up enjoying the story. The mystery and the romance were up to par for me, and it touched upon real life things that you may or may not relate to. From looking at the reviews, if you formatted and edited a little better people may have enjoyed the story a bit more.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of SHARED STARS in exchange for my honest review***

The poor formatting of the ARC for SHARED STARS made the book almost unreadable. My review isn’t reflective of the formatting, although perhaps I would have been able to get into the book more easily if I could have read the words effortlessly from page to page, but I couldn’t connect to the characters or plot, despite my interest in the blurb.