Review: Of Scars and Stardust

Of Scars and Stardust by Andrea Hannah

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she’s been dying to leave behind.

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget what her psychiatrist calls her “delusions,” Claire can’t seem to escape the wolf’s eyes or the blood-speckled snow. Delusion or reality, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she’s ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep her hallucinations at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella’s trail grows fainter, the wolves are becoming startlingly real.

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister’s disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella’s past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.

Of Scars and Stardust was a breath-taking thriller which I wasn’t able to put down (except for much-needed sleep). Claire returns to her town after two years of the incident which left her sister scared and herself traumatized. She believes the wolves of her town were responsible and feels that she is still within hunting range for them. Her psyche twists everything and you wonder if it all is real – if the wolves were real. Honestly, I was questioning myself if this was supernatural too – her perspective was so engrossing. Grant was also too sweet and for the first time in weeks, I was really rooting for a couple hard, even though romance was not even the main focus of the story.

The writing brings the story to life, with adequate details and well-constructed backstories and pulls you in from the start. You can feel Claire’s despair over her decision to run from the problems, her desperate love for her sister, her longing for Grant, and her fear over the wolves. While investigating the case of her sister’s disappearance in the present, she comes across a lot of buried secrets. Some of them are pretty shocking, and even I did not see the twist coming. Without being spoilery, all I can say is that the end made me question a lot of things I simply accepted while reading the book. While thinking back on it, it made me wonder what really happened, and I am still a bit awed by the fantastic finish the author gave. I still, though, am not fully satisfied with it – I wanted more explanations, perhaps more story too. It gave me chills, and was simply quite enchanting to read. Good thriller!

Received an ARC from Flux via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinions or review.

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