Review: Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

All her world's a stage.
Beatrice Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.
She is not an orphan, but she has no parents.
She knows every part, but has no lines of her own.
Until now.

Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the characters of every place ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book—an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family—and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.

Wow. That was my first thought as I closed the cover of this book when I finished it. It was absolutely amazing.

I admit that when you first start reading it you can get a little confused as to what's going on.  No explanation is given about how the theater works, but you figure it out on the way.  It's a great example of showing and not telling the reader what's happening.  The author's words are magic as well; Mantchev writes with beautiful descriptions and voices her characters so perfectly that their personality shines through with each word.

Bertie is one of the most awesome protagonists I've met so far. She's quirky but imperfect (with a few not so great habits) and has seriously got me questioning whether I should dye my hair like her's.  She's so cool I can't help wishing I was her. I giggled so hard with the bath scene- seriously which other protagonist would strip off without a qualm in front of the boy she was crushing on? No one that I know of that's for sure (if you do let me know, I love MC's who are that confident!)

The other shining point of this novel was of course the romance.  Nate and Ariel. Seriously how could you choose? Both of these male leads have such great chemistry with Bertie and are both awesome in their own right. I can't wait to see what happens with this love triangle!

Eyes like Stars is a book I should definitely not have waited so long to read. In a genre growing so fast that pure originality is starting to become rare, this book is a gem. There's no other story like it. I have to say the one good thing about reading it so late is that now I won't have to wait so long for the sequel- Perchance To Dream (can I just say that, despite it being almost impossible, its cover is even more gorgeous than this one?). Only 23 days more to go!

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥♥