Title: Starry Nights
Author: Daisey Whitney
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Fantasy elements
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Release Date: September 3, 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Source: ARC received from publisher for honest review

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Seventeen-year-old Julien is a romantic—he loves spending his free time at the museum poring over the great works of the Impressionists. But one night, a peach falls out of a Cezanne, Degas ballerinas dance across the floor, and Julien is not hallucinating.

The art is reacting to a curse that trapped a beautiful girl, Clio, in a painting forever. Julien has a chance to free Clio and he can't help but fall in love with her. But love is a curse in its own right. And soon paintings begin to bleed and disappear. Together Julien and Clio must save the world's greatest art . . . at the expense of the greatest love they've ever known.

Like a master painter herself, Daisy Whitney brings inordinate talent and ingenuity to this romantic, suspenseful, and sophisticated new novel. A beautifully decorated package makes it a must-own in print.


Starry Nights was a book that I was extremely excited to read for many reasons. One is was by Daisey Whitney, two has to do with art, and three it was set in Paris, which is by far my favorite place in the world. I went into this book with an open mind, and I will admit that i was disappointed.

I feel like my biggest issue in this book was the characters. Julien, our narrator was very one dimensional. We meet him when he has just been dumped by an American Girl and is now trying to move on. The we meet a whole slew of characters that appear and disappear just as fast as they appeared. I think there was just too much going on for me to follow the story properly. And once the secret of Julien being able to see the paintings come to life happened, I think that was it for me. It was just too much in one book.

Although I thought that seeing painting come to life was a turning point for me in this story, I did really enjoy the history the author put behind them. I really enjoyed getting a history of art while reading this story and honestly you would think it would be info dump after info dump but it wasn't. I felt completely at ease while reading about the stories behind some of histories most prized paintings. And I thought that the author did a very good job of incorporating said history into the story.

Another aspect I loved in this book was the mystery aspect that arrived near the end of the book. it was a great distraction from the rest of the story and I honestly wish it was more prominent in the story itself. Once that aspect of the story started i found myself flipping pages like it was no ones business. I wanted to know what happened at the end. And although the end was a bit cliche, it worked. And it was very sweet.

Overall, Starry Nights was a cute and easy read that will make anyone who loves art happy. The characters, although at times one dimensional, developed this story into a great mystery.