Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev is the first book in a triology I just finished reading, and it's a must read.
Beatrice Shakespeare Smith lives in the Theatre Illuminata, a theater where all the plays in the world are routinely preformed, and the characters are all on call . . . literally. From Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet to the Darling children from Peter Pan, they all live in the theater. Bertie herself prefers to hang with Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed, fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream. But Bertie is not a player, so therefore she is not an asset to the theater, and there is a possibility that she might have to leave . . . Jumping into action, Bertie creates a plan that might save her day, but will she harm Nate, a pirate from The Little Mermaid and a very good looking guy, with her rash actions? And will she find the strenght to trust the Ariel, the air elemental from the Tempest, who wants to leave the theater and Bertie forever?
In Perchance to Dream, Beatrice Shakspeare Smith and Company heads out for the open road the and sea. Bertie is eager to find Nate, but with Ariel at her side, that is anything but easy. With her father on the winds, and her mother back at the theater Bertie is feeling torn between Nate, Ariel, her destiny, and her family. Will she have the strength to find Senda and pull Nate back from the brink, or will her dreams dissolve into brine?
So Sliver Bright wraps up the triology, bringing on a fresh challenge and a fresh wave of heartbreak. With Ariel threatening to leave forever and a royal summons from Her Royal Majesty herself, will Bertie be able to keep Sedna from destroying all she loves while reuniting her family, or will it just fall apart on its own before she can do anything about it? The world is crumbling around her, and Beatrice Shakespeare Smith must find the strength to be her own person before she falls with it.
These books are full of geniune teenage heartbreak. With an eighteen-year-old as the heroine, and two males as the co-stars, there was bound to be some of that, but . . . The plot moves quickly, though you wonder what is Sedna's place in the whole thing. Is she just the Sea Goddess or did she somehow escape from The Little Mermaid? Also, the pieces try to fit together, but they are sometimes crammed or poorly thought out. Characters such as Serefina and Varvara seem to be clues to something else, but end up as loose ends. And though what Bertie writes can take a literal meaning, the world around her doesn't quite make sense either. There is one scene that I cannot get, the one where they're in the Imperial Tea Room in So Sliver Bright, and a forest grows up around them. And why on earth is Bertie a 'child of earth' if her mother embodies water and her father embodies air? What is with that whole 'Queen of the Forest' thing?
I like Bertie's spunk though, and the fact that she's usually so confident. I mean, what other girl would dye their hair a different color everyday of the week and come up with the schemes she does? The fairies are hysterical too. For hyper, sugar-loving, face-stuffing, rude things that are three inches tall and are extremely immature they are a laugh a minute. One scene that had me clutching my sides was the one in which the boys eat Pease's boyfriend, 'Henry', the groom from a wedding cake in Perchance to Dream.
Sometimes you wish that the books would get around to their point a bit sooner. And it also is very painful to moi that Bertie ruins at least one beautiful dress every fifty pages. But while you're getting to the point there are plenty of smiles and sweet scenes, and the way Bertie destroys her clothing is most interesting. Whatever faults these books may have they are fixed because the characters are so wonderful.
So, now I have a sudden urge to go read the complete works of Shakespeare . . .
(P.S. I don't like the ending of So Silver Bright, just so you know. Yes, it was a twist, but now I am seriously annoyed at Lisa Mantchev. It's very sad . . . and I don't like the guy Bertie ended up wtih.)
http://theatre-illuminata.com/ Is the website. It has better summaries of the books, and some funny photos. Oh, and just so you don't get your hopes up, 'The Great Fairy Hunt' is not a computer game.
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