Product Description

A 2008 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list nominee! 

How can Christy Marlowe—an impulsive, wise-cracking horoscope-junkie—be in love with Ben, a well-mannered college freshman who prefers astronomy over astrology?

Their fateful first meeting takes place at a plastic surgeon’s office, where both hope to erase painful memories along with unwanted tattoos. Is it a bad omen that Ben has the same name as Christy’s ex-boyfriend, a drug-pedaling punk in juvie for murder? It’s hard for Christy to care when Ben sends her heart "racing through galaxies of bliss." Just as Ben is worried about Christy’s obsessed ex who’s back on the streets, Christy is troubled by the sadness lurking in Ben’s ice-blue eyes.

Burying the past isn’t easy and this comedy of love turns upside down when Christy and Ben become ensnared in their own lies. Starcrossed or starmates, can they forgo Romeo and Juliet’s tragic fate and find their way back to truth and trust?

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #830196 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 305 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—Horoscope-obsessed Christy Marlowe, 16, meets 18-year-old college-bound Ben Penrose at a plastic surgeon's office, where she has gone to have a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend's name removed. The name of the ex, now serving time for a gang-related killing, just happens to be Benjamin; Ben, meanwhile, is there to have a "Christy" tattoo removed. Readers who move past this too-perfect meeting are bound to enjoy Schreiber's edgy spin on Romeo and Juliet. Christy and Ben begin dating, slowly revealing truths and secrets to each other as they grow closer. Roadblocks to their relationship bliss include the reappearance of Benjamin; Christy's concern with what she interprets as Ben's suicidal tendencies; and Ben's lies about his past. Schreiber handily blends the novel's serious elements (suicide, gang violence) with Christy's sarcasm and teenage dramatics. The pacing sags a little through the middle of the story, and some of the young lovers' quarrels feel contrived, but readers will want to find out if the two can overcome their star-crossed destinies to create a happy ending of their own design. Just in case readers miss the Shakespeare connection, a chapter in which Christy reads the play for a school assignment spells out the parallels in rather heavy-handed terms. Nonetheless, this is a pleasing addition to the growing genre of updates to the Bard's classic plots.—Amy Pickett, Ridley High School, Folsom, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Mark Schreiber is the author of several books, including the novel Princes in Exile. He lives and writes in Ohio.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Corpse Blue Tattoo

How did a sweet girl of destiny like myself, far along the road to recovery from youthful mistakes and misfortunes, in love-really-for the very first time, find herself one stormy, ominous night in a death embrace with her stricken Romeo, holding a nine iron defiantly on Life's eighteenth hole, while the dark clouds of our destruction rolled overhead?

It all started when I got Benjamin scraped off my chest. It was an expensive correction, since insurance companies don't pay for tattoo removal. But fair enough, I didn't want anyone to know anyway and I had some money stashed under my bed. But every office I called wanted my life his­tory. I even thought of doing it myself with carbolic acid and a Q-tip. But then I called a plastic surgeon that gave me an appointment just like that-reason for visit, name, you'll have to pay at the time of service-she didn't even ask my age. Cool.

I'd never been to a doctor alone before. This unwel­come thought came to me as I entered the medical build­ing and stood alone waiting for the shiny elevator doors to open. My mom always took me to the doctor, or Ben­jamin. Once I wanted him to take me to my gynecolo­gist because my mom didn't know I was on the pill and I didn't want to go alone. He refused until I told him a lot of women have affairs with their ob-gyn. Mine was a woman but Benjamin never paid attention to details.

So I was feeling anxious standing there alone waiting eons for the damn elevator-there are only three floors, where could it be? The Sears Tower was faster! I wanted to be comforted at a time like this, distracted-I wanted someone to talk to, to take my mind off the fact that I was about to get ink-ink that's seeped into my breast scraped off with a needle or a razor or burned away with carbolic acid on a Q-tip. It's like waiting for a roller coaster but with only misery ahead and no thrill.

And what if someone I knew saw me? Someone who knew my parents? I looked at the building directory. I'd tell them I was seeing Stephen Wilde, M.D., allergist, also on the third floor, for my hay fever. But what would happen when I was actually in Dr. Dobrowski's office itself-the point of no return? What if my dad's secretary also hap­pened to be there, waiting to get her eyelids lifted?

I crept past the allergist's door and paused casually in front of Dr. Dobrowski's office like I was looking for the drinking fountain. There was a sliver of glass next to the door through which I could see several people. Plastic surgeons shouldn't have waiting rooms. They should have doors with peepholes and buzzers like crack houses.

My throbbing heart told me to leave. But the line of blue ink with that cursed name an inch or two away from my heart said stay. Besides, it took three weeks to get this appointment and they'd probably bill me anyway.

Inside were a couple fat women, a couple old women, and a guy about my age. A guy! Maybe he was waiting for his mother or grandmother, back there becoming thirty again. The nurse behind the counter told me to sign in and pushed some forms on a clipboard my way. She had an expensive nose but could have used a smile.

I'd give them my name, rank, and serial number but I wasn't signing in or filling out forms. I put my purse on the counter on top of the clipboard to prove I was a serious patient-I was going to pay-in advance! But the nurse didn't care. She was put on earth to make sure people filled out forms and if a blank form should happen to slide through it could mean the end of the universe as we know it. I patiently explained-whispering of course-that who­ever I talked to on the phone said everything was cool. Who did I talk to? How should I know, I'm not the one making the appointments! She went to consult with a woman in the back, her supervisor-the woman I talked to?-and when she returned said I didn't have to sign in or give them my insurance info but they needed my medical history for their records. I answered the medical questions truthfully but I put down a false address in case they decided to send me coupons, and where it said person to contact in case of emergency I wrote God with a question mark above phone number. If my plastic surgeon didn't have a sense of humor it was better to know before his sharp instruments descended on my naked flesh.

I took a seat beside a table piled with magazines and flipped through a tattooless Vogue. But who did these mags think they were kidding? These models had tattoos, they were just concealed or Clearasiled over. If I were in Vogue no one would be wiser. You'd have to see me in a Victoria's Secret catalog modeling one of their lace bras to catch a glimpse of my secret. And even then you'd only see the traces of blue ink; you wouldn't be able to read the name. Maybe I was overreacting. Who had to see my breasts any­way? By the time I was ready for a husband they might have stretched or sagged enough to make it just a blue blur.

"What are you here for?"

It was the guy, sitting on the other side of the table. I looked everywhere but at him, but I was alone. The fat women and old women who would surely have sup­ported me against this rude offender were gone. I went to the ends of the earth to protect my privacy and a complete stranger-a guy-at the point of no return-asked me why I was here!

I couldn't ignore him since we were alone so I sneered back like his worst nightmare. "Excuse me?"

He was smiling but I could see he was nervous-this was his pick up line, maybe he'd hung out here preying on girls with crooked noses. "What are you in here for?" he repeated.

Now I looked at him full force-cringe and die, and he did shift back a little. "Don't you know that's a question you never ask in prison or a plastic surgeon's office!"

He became flustered, but to his credit persisted in annoying me. He was scared but courageous. "I just wanted to tell you if you were getting a breast augmentation it isn't necessary."

Now I was the one who was flustered and it wasn't so much because of what he'd said-although that was bad enough-as the fact that I couldn't help noticing he was sort of cute. He had a nose that didn't need fixing-I never looked at noses until I stepped into this office-per­fect white teeth-long blond-streaked hair, and murder­ous ice-blue eyes. He was taller than I was, which was tall enough, and was wearing tight jeans, a Northwestern jer­sey, and a gold earring.

"If I want a tit job that's my business!" I told him loudly to show him he couldn't embarrass me. "Not that that's what I'm here for."

"I just couldn't think why someone like you . . ."

"It could be a thousand things." And I immediately regretted my big mouth as his eyes widened imagining those thousand things.

"What's wrong with a tit job anyway?" I asked to keep him from thinking about all the hideous flaws I could have been hiding. "It's because of men that the women in these magazines starve and inflate their bodies."

"But women buy these magazines," he said, trying to be too logical. And then he looked too serious for this conversation. "I don't think the same substance inside a PC should also be inside a woman."

"And I suppose you've had personal experience with silicone?"

"Well . . ."

I laughed. I went back to my Vogue.

"You want to know what I'm here for?" he said after a while.

"Some kind of augmentation?"

"I'm getting a tattoo removed."

I turned some pages. But it was a coincidence.

"What's your name?" he said when I still ignored him.

"I don't give out my name."

"I could look at the sign-in sheet," he said cleverly.

"I didn't sign in," I said, more clever.

"I only want your first name."

I thought about it. "What's your sign?"

"Why do you want to know my sign?"

"I'll tell you my name if you're the right sign. What's your birth date?"

"February twentieth."

"A Pisces."

"Is that good?"

"Could be better. Christy."

"Really! With a C or a K?"

"With a C."

"Wow."

"What's the matter?"

He rolled up his left sleeve and turned his shoulder toward me. There in dark blue letters on his upper arm was my name!

"Too bad I don't like you," I said. "You could have saved a hundred and fifty dollars!"

I thought this would devastate him, but the coinci­dence only made him bolder. He looked at me with his ice-blue eyes. "If you don't like me, why did you sit next to me?"

"I didn't sit next to you. I sat next to the magazines."

"There are magazines over there."

"It isn't considered sitting next to someone when there's a table between them!"

"You're the astrologer. You should know it was fate that made you pick this chair out of all the chairs in the room."

"You'd need a lot of stars in your corner to stand a chance with me. I'd blow you away."

"My name's Ben."

But I was the one who was blown away. "Is your real name Benjamin?"

"Yeah, but I never use it. It either sounds like a little boy or an old scholar. Why?"

"I hate that name," I said.

AAA

I sat on the exam table, my legs dangling above the floor. The nurse told me to take off my shirt and hand...

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Customer Reviews

A must read for teens
Reviewed by Tabytha Joy (age 15) for Reader Views (6/07)

"Starcrossed" is a book about a teenage girl who must learn to get over her past. Christy undergoes many changes in her life. It all starts when her boyfriend ends up going to jail for murder.

After her boyfriend goes to jail, Christy decides to get her boyfriend's name removed from her chest. While at the plastic surgeon's office, Christy meets an older guy who is also there to remove his past. After the visit to the surgeon's office, Christy can't get Ben off her mind. All she thinks about is the man she met in the plastic surgeon's office. But will Christy ever see Ben again?

Throughout this story, Christy continues to run into Ben. But she always fails to ask him for a way to contact him. Fate must have been on Christy's side! Before she knows it, Christy and Ben are one. It was love at first sight. Christy loves Ben. But he is older then she is. So Christy lies about her age in hopes of being with Ben. They end up building a relationship off of lies and their past.

In my opinion, this book was great! I love the way the author made "Starcrossed" so unpredictable. From the first page to the last, this book kept you wanting to read more. It's impossible to put the book down. It's great how the author taught a lot of lessons throughout this book while also keeping the story line interesting.

This book is a must read for everyone! Moms, dads, brothers, and sisters, everyone should read it! "Starcrossed" is a very unique book and is one of a kind. It teaches the lesson that you can't change your past, But you can learn from it.

Angieville: STARCROSSED
STARCROSSED (love that it's one word) was one of those "I'm on vacation. In a new bookstore. I'm going to just pick up the first interesting-looking book I see and read it on the plane ride home" books. I love those books. They never disappoint. The title tipped me off to the Romeo & Juliet aspect of it, so I was most interested to see how Schreiber ended his version. But the beginning scene is what did it for me. Girl meets Boy in plastic surgeon office waiting room. Being the only two people in the room, Girl and Boy are forced to strike up the dreaded conversation. "So. What are you in for?" Turns out they're both in to have tattoos with their former flame's (FF) name in them removed. Even better, they each share the same first name as the other's FF. Awesome.

Teen Love... but not completely absurd
OK, I have to preface this by two things. 1) I read a lot of juvie fic, so I have a high tolerance for it 2) this was shelved in regular fiction at my library... and absolutely SHOULD NOT BE.

This will drive anyone who cannot read juvie fic nuts. The hyperbole of emotion, the absurdness of the situations... these are simply not adults and the larger than life reactions they have do not ring at all true for adults.

But I think they do ring true for kids. I teach kids, and I see this kind of craziness on a very very regular basis.

Our star crossed lovers meet whilst trying to erase - literally - a piece of their past. Tattoos. It is high coincidence that they are each erasing the other's name. Benjamin is open about removing Christy's name, but very closed about who Christy is. Christy doesn't reveal that she's removing Benjamin's name, but, for reasons of necessity, she's forced to reveal just who her Benjamin was, over the course of the book.

Both of these kids are mixed up. Both lie... a lot. He seems more mature than she on the outside, but on the inside, she's more balanced.

I think that the actions and dialogue are pretty close to real teenage-dom, and the underlying theme- no one is our destiny, relationships take work - is true for everyone.

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