Erg mooi boek over vriendschap en liefde, trouw en familie. Zoë is een populair meisje met een geheim en Sam is een artistiek meisje, die heel teruggetrokken leven heeft op school. Als Zoë ontdekt hoe goed Sam kan schetsen en tekenen raken ze bevriend en creëren ze via What's app een geheime wereld die ze Starworld noemen. Daar kunnen ze het heelal bezoeken en fantastische dingen meemaken. Door dit contact leren ze ook steeds meer over hun echte leven en de geheimen die ze met zich meedragen. Samen kunnen ze die dingen aan, maar dan is er een gebeurtenis waardoor ze uit elkaar gerukt worden. ( )

Sam doesn't fit in at school. She spends most of her time trying to live with and accommodate her mom's OCD, and the rest of the time pretending she's a robot to avoid thinking about her dad, who left five years ago to move to London. Her only real outlet is occasional video games with her friend Will. Popular, pretty Zoe has lots of friends and a great boyfriend, and gets good grades and starring roles in the school plays. But her life is falling apart at home as she and her family struggle to deal with her mom's cancer and her disabled brother Jonah -- and as she struggles to find her identity as someone who was adopted. When the two girls forge an unlikely friendship over texts, they create an escape called Starworld, and they start to realize that they understand each other in a way they've never experience before.

I started out liking this book and ended up unable to put it down in the last half -- I even sacrificed some sleep! Sam and Zoe felt very real and I felt for them as they navigated some really tough situations. I wasn't expecting to get so attached, but I was crying on and off throughout the second half. Recommended! 4 stars. ( )

*I WAS SENT A PHYSICAL COPY IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT MY OPINION*

Starworld was a book I had many expectations of and was looking forward to reading. However, when I actually sat down to do so, the book did less than wow me.

Fifty pages into the novel, I was bored out of my mind and decided to DNF it. There's barely any flow in that section alone, and the characters seem to complain about A LOT of things in that short amount of time.

For one, our first main character Sam has this high held belief of Zoe that she is perfect in every way, shape, and form, and that no bad thing could ever happen with her involved. Obviously, when this was found out to not be true, she seemed actually surprised. Why the authors did this, I don't know. Either way, we shouldn't be holding our characters up to be perfect. There's no such thing irl, so why should perfection be real in this contemporary?

And for our second main character Zoe (the one referenced above with Sam) is actually TRYING to be perfect. On top of that, she spent more than an entire page complaining about how her boyfriend wanted to have sex with her homecoming night and that she's not sure if she's ready for that or not. Along with that, we gained information about her adoption through the synopsis, so it shouldn't be a surprise when we read about it, right? Correct, but the way it was brought up made it seem like the authors through it in during last minute edits.

And throughout all of this, there are constant, annoying, role-playing text messages occurring between the two characters. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with role-playing at all. But when it goes on for half—and sometimes even above half—the chapter, it gets annoying and is completely unnecessary.

Altogether, this book fell very short of my expectations, and I was thoroughly disappointed. For that, I rate this book 1 star. ( )

Sam Jones and Zoe Miller are seniors in high school, but they've never had a reason to communicate during their years in school together. Sam is a nerd. She wants to be an aerospace engineer, and she's artistically talented, too. She also has only one friend, and she prefers to keep it that way. Zoe is the classic popular girl: she gets the lead in every school play, and she has a beautiful voice. She's also dating the star of the basketball team.

When Zoe approaches Sam about using one of her paintings in an upcoming play, Sam is freaked out to be speaking to someone on Zoe's level at the school. Eventually, the girls develop a friendship and bond over the home lives and family challenges that they're both trying to hide from everyone else. The two girls build a special world through text messages that they both visit when real life becomes too much, and Starworld is both a refuge and a secret that they share.

Although the girls' families provide plenty of tension and drama, the plot is made even more intense as Sam struggles with her romantic feelings for Zoe--and Zoe is completely oblivious.

STARWORLD by Audrey Coulthurst and Paula Garner is told in alternating voices, and the book does a great job of balancing drama and humor. I raced through the pages, and I was rooting for both girls to find safety and happiness. The characters of Zoe and Sam are both developed well, though Sam has a bit more depth--it's possible that's because she has to stand on her own so much while Zoe has more of a supporting cast with other friendships and a larger family. I enjoyed the story itself, and although I ended up skimming the sections where the girls' texts took them deep into Starworld, those forays didn't detract too much from the real relationships surrounding them.

All in all, STARWORLD is a completely charming book, and I loved being a fly on the wall through Sam and Zoe's story. My thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. ( )

Wow, I did not expect the tear jerker ending, so if you don't like them, skip it and if you do, get the box of kleenex out. Sam and Zoe are opposites, but they both have something to hide.

Sam is socially backward, calling herself a robot. She's an amazing artist and story teller and is interested in rockets. The one friend she has isn't invited to the house because her mother has OCD and Sam is ashamed and afraid.

Zoe is a talented actress and singer, with an amazing circle of friends, yet no one is invited to her house either. Her mother is battling cancer and her brother is severely disabled.

The both feel lost. Sam is socially backward and Zoe is adopted. They are always wondering how life would be different under different circumstances.

The two meet accidentally in Sam's art class and soon become fast friends. But, do they both feel the same way about each other?

There are several very touching moments in the book, one being a poem that Sam wrote to Soe. The other being the entire last few chapters. Tears were prevalent (my tears, not the characters' tears) periodically throughout the book. Starworld is an extremely touching book and probably one of the best books I've read this year. ( )