I really wanted to like Starry Night but, there were too many things that just did not work for me. For starters, the main character Wren drove me crazy. I wanted to give her a chance but she just kept doing things that completely worked against her. She started out with all these ambitions and good ideas and then suddenly poof it was all gone. She based all of her decisions on other people instead of making up her mind for herself. And she falls in love with the first boy who looks her way for longer than a minute. Granted she is 15 years old but, she didn’t act 15 to me. And when she winds up being betrayed I couldn’t help but think that she brought it on herself.

Wren’s group of friends also drove me crazy. Again, they are teenagers but, where is the parental supervision? It just felt lacking. Especially in the case of two of her friends (one that is involved with a WAY older man; and the second who can come and go from her house as she pleases). Now I had friends growing up who had limited supervision because their parents trusted them but, this just seemed to be way too lax. And it was honestly putting the teenagers in unsafe situations. I’m not sure what kind of message was trying to be put into a young adult book with this.

I think the majority of what I couldn’t understand of Starry Night came from the way that it was written. It just felt very immature. The voice of the main character did not feel 15 years old except in the way that she was willing to throw everything away for one person who honestly didn’t even really give a damn about her. Some of the dialogue within the book also did not work for me – it was cringe worthy. I’m not trying to be overtly negative about it but, it just did not work for me. It might work for someone younger or someone who enjoys this more simplistic writing though.

Ironically, I went all the way through Starry Night because I wanted to see how it all was going to end. It was like continuing with a bad accident and being unable to turn away. I was invested as a reader and yet I wasn’t. I was more or less invested so that I could move onto my next read.

Better suited for very young YA readers, a promising premise is lost among so-so writing, and underdevloped characters.