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amymcgarva's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
bookph1le's review against another edition
3.0
It's hard for me to give this book what feels like so few stars, because I found it incredibly affecting and incredibly important, but there were some structural problems with it I can't deny. Still, I want to be clear that I think it's well worth a read. RTC
Full review:
This was a tricky book for me. On the one hand, it has a lot going for it: great representation of bisexual and genderqueer characters, a serious discussion of rape culture and misogyny that doesn't treat teens like they're ignorant idiots, a critical look at how easy it can be to pay lip service to feminism and how difficult it can be to stand up when it matters, and how excruciatingly hard it can be to reconcile the love you can have with someone with the terrible actions they can take. This book contains a great deal of sensitivity and heart, and it's an important book that I think is very valuable, especially considering current conversations around sexual/dating violence, but some parts of it just did not work for me. Spoilers to follow, because I need to get in depth with what my issues with this book were.
First and foremost, I really wish Blake hadn't made Mara a victim of abuse as well. This part of the book just felt kind of tacked on to me, a way to round Mara out by giving her a reason for her anxiety, and a lens for viewing what her brother does. I didn't feel this aspect was particularly well developed--and that's not to say I wanted to read a more graphic depiction of her abuse than what the book offers, because I really, really didn't want to read that. But I guess I didn't entirely buy into the abuse scenario because it seemed to abrupt, too much like the proverbial stranger jumping out of the bushes to attack the unsuspecting female. Plus, I didn't like that Mara was a victim as well because her own experience seemed to have too much bearing on how she felt about Hannah's experience. I don't think this was the author's intent, per se, because she does talk a lot about how women often aren't believed, their voices silenced, but I couldn't help but feel that had Mara not been through what she had in the past, she wouldn't have believed what Hannah says.
Instead, what I would have liked to have seen was more of a reckoning and examination on Mara's part of her brother's behavior. Every so often, the book throws in a little vignette with Owen that makes it disturbingly clear how entitled he is. I wish the book had been centered more around that, because it is the heart of what rape culture is and how it influences how sexual violence is viewed in our culture. Owen is an outright prick every now and then, yet everyone cuts him slack--Mara, his parents, Alex, the other kids at school--which didn't strike me as unrealistic--sadly--but did make me wish the book had done more to deconstruct what was wrong with his behavior. And not only did Owen have an entitled attitude and some clearly deeply-seated problematic beliefs, he had a problem with alcohol. It doesn't matter if he isn't technically an alcoholic, but alcohol clearly fueled very unacceptable behavior in him, and I felt like the book needed to consider that angle of the story a lot more than it did. Instead, it felt like it wrote it off as, "Oh, Owen's a bad drunk". I think it's important not just for teenagers but also adults to think about the ways in which doing bad things is enabled by alcohol, and how alcohol is far, far too often used as a means of writing off sexual assault.
My other issue with this book was Mara's relationship with Charlie. I was glad to see the representation, but their relationship wasn't entirely healthy. Mara does seem to know this, and the book hints at it, but I wish it would have taken the time to show how Mara needed to figure out how to deal with her own issues herself without relying so much on Charlie. It's not that depending on friends or family members to help with mental issues is wrong, but those issue can't be magically fixed either, and I wanted the book to address the fact that Mara needs help and will need to do a lot of work to help get herself to a place where she's ready for a relationship. This is by no means a smear against Mara, but considering how scarily prevalent unhealthy relationships are among teens, I want YA novels to treat the issue a big differently. Certainly it's a good thing for Mara to draw strength from close relationships, but I wanted the book to show her learning that she has to take care of herself first before she can really take care of others.
And, lastly, my other problem with this book was the beginning. Something about it felt kind of twee to me, and it took a while before I felt like I was involved in the story rather than watching people act out a not particularly good play. I don't know if it was the dialog or the kind of strange relationship between Owen and Mara, but it took me a while to get really invested in this book, which is a shame. By the end of the book, the prose was hitting me like a sledgehammer, making me sob, and I wish I would have felt that same pull right from the beginning.
So why did I give this book three stars? Well, because of what I just mentioned. There are some really deep, really breathtaking glimmers to this book. It is brutal and honest, and I liked that about it. And I also liked that it wasn't tied up neatly--though like isn't really the right word. What I mean is that I appreciated how realistic this book tried to be about sexual violence. Sure, we'd all like to think that perpetrators get their comeuppance in the end, but the fact of the matter is that they don't. I appreciated that this book was content to let that messiness exist, that it didn't tie the whole thing up in a neat bow. I liked the ambiguity, the sense that while Mara understands that moving forward is possible, she also knows it means that nothing is going to be the same again.
I also have to say that I liked Mara and Owen's mother's reaction to what Owen did--not because I agreed with her attitude, but because, again, I appreciated that the book was grounded and honest about it. I think there are abundant real world examples of how women and men can proclaim their feminism, only to have their beliefs fall apart the minute they're put to the test. Mara's mother was an extremely disappointing character to me because I wanted her to learn and to grow from her experience, yet I don't in any way fault the author for choosing instead to have her mother double down and dig in her heels. I found this an entirely, sadly realistic portrayal of the way a mother might deal with her son's having committed rape, by clinging to her conviction that her son isn't that kind of boy.
I also want to give the book props for doing a great job of providing representation, even though I think maybe that whole angle might have been done more justice in a book centered entirely around questions of sexuality and gender identity. Still, it is a good thing to see characters from all over the spectrum represented in YA lit, and I hope this diversity trend becomes a permanent staple of the genre. I also appreciated that this book depicted anxiety in a realistic way, which is another type of representation that hasn't always been as prevalent in YA lit as it should have been. I don't expect nor even really want books to be full of life lessons. That's too preachy. But to me YA is different because it's targeted to adolescents, and at that stage of development it's important to see characters who resemble teens from all kind of backgrounds. I read both YA and adult, and I definitely think YA has the advantage when it comes to being progressive and offering more authors and marginalized people a voice. There is still a ton of work to be done, there's no doubt about that, but I'm hopeful that other genres will see what's happening in YA and get on board as well.
In the end, even though I can't give this book an enthusiastic five-star rating, I do think it's more than worth a read, and I would like to see it put into the hands of every teenager. Teens are especially vulnerable to sexual violence and relationship violence in general, and every teen, no matter their gender identity, needs to learn more about what is acceptable and unacceptable. Hopefully, someday, they'll do a better job of making this world a better and more equitable place than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have managed.
Full review:
This was a tricky book for me. On the one hand, it has a lot going for it: great representation of bisexual and genderqueer characters, a serious discussion of rape culture and misogyny that doesn't treat teens like they're ignorant idiots, a critical look at how easy it can be to pay lip service to feminism and how difficult it can be to stand up when it matters, and how excruciatingly hard it can be to reconcile the love you can have with someone with the terrible actions they can take. This book contains a great deal of sensitivity and heart, and it's an important book that I think is very valuable, especially considering current conversations around sexual/dating violence, but some parts of it just did not work for me. Spoilers to follow, because I need to get in depth with what my issues with this book were.
First and foremost, I really wish Blake hadn't made Mara a victim of abuse as well. This part of the book just felt kind of tacked on to me, a way to round Mara out by giving her a reason for her anxiety, and a lens for viewing what her brother does. I didn't feel this aspect was particularly well developed--and that's not to say I wanted to read a more graphic depiction of her abuse than what the book offers, because I really, really didn't want to read that. But I guess I didn't entirely buy into the abuse scenario because it seemed to abrupt, too much like the proverbial stranger jumping out of the bushes to attack the unsuspecting female. Plus, I didn't like that Mara was a victim as well because her own experience seemed to have too much bearing on how she felt about Hannah's experience. I don't think this was the author's intent, per se, because she does talk a lot about how women often aren't believed, their voices silenced, but I couldn't help but feel that had Mara not been through what she had in the past, she wouldn't have believed what Hannah says.
Instead, what I would have liked to have seen was more of a reckoning and examination on Mara's part of her brother's behavior. Every so often, the book throws in a little vignette with Owen that makes it disturbingly clear how entitled he is. I wish the book had been centered more around that, because it is the heart of what rape culture is and how it influences how sexual violence is viewed in our culture. Owen is an outright prick every now and then, yet everyone cuts him slack--Mara, his parents, Alex, the other kids at school--which didn't strike me as unrealistic--sadly--but did make me wish the book had done more to deconstruct what was wrong with his behavior. And not only did Owen have an entitled attitude and some clearly deeply-seated problematic beliefs, he had a problem with alcohol. It doesn't matter if he isn't technically an alcoholic, but alcohol clearly fueled very unacceptable behavior in him, and I felt like the book needed to consider that angle of the story a lot more than it did. Instead, it felt like it wrote it off as, "Oh, Owen's a bad drunk". I think it's important not just for teenagers but also adults to think about the ways in which doing bad things is enabled by alcohol, and how alcohol is far, far too often used as a means of writing off sexual assault.
My other issue with this book was Mara's relationship with Charlie. I was glad to see the representation, but their relationship wasn't entirely healthy. Mara does seem to know this, and the book hints at it, but I wish it would have taken the time to show how Mara needed to figure out how to deal with her own issues herself without relying so much on Charlie. It's not that depending on friends or family members to help with mental issues is wrong, but those issue can't be magically fixed either, and I wanted the book to address the fact that Mara needs help and will need to do a lot of work to help get herself to a place where she's ready for a relationship. This is by no means a smear against Mara, but considering how scarily prevalent unhealthy relationships are among teens, I want YA novels to treat the issue a big differently. Certainly it's a good thing for Mara to draw strength from close relationships, but I wanted the book to show her learning that she has to take care of herself first before she can really take care of others.
And, lastly, my other problem with this book was the beginning. Something about it felt kind of twee to me, and it took a while before I felt like I was involved in the story rather than watching people act out a not particularly good play. I don't know if it was the dialog or the kind of strange relationship between Owen and Mara, but it took me a while to get really invested in this book, which is a shame. By the end of the book, the prose was hitting me like a sledgehammer, making me sob, and I wish I would have felt that same pull right from the beginning.
So why did I give this book three stars? Well, because of what I just mentioned. There are some really deep, really breathtaking glimmers to this book. It is brutal and honest, and I liked that about it. And I also liked that it wasn't tied up neatly--though like isn't really the right word. What I mean is that I appreciated how realistic this book tried to be about sexual violence. Sure, we'd all like to think that perpetrators get their comeuppance in the end, but the fact of the matter is that they don't. I appreciated that this book was content to let that messiness exist, that it didn't tie the whole thing up in a neat bow. I liked the ambiguity, the sense that while Mara understands that moving forward is possible, she also knows it means that nothing is going to be the same again.
I also have to say that I liked Mara and Owen's mother's reaction to what Owen did--not because I agreed with her attitude, but because, again, I appreciated that the book was grounded and honest about it. I think there are abundant real world examples of how women and men can proclaim their feminism, only to have their beliefs fall apart the minute they're put to the test. Mara's mother was an extremely disappointing character to me because I wanted her to learn and to grow from her experience, yet I don't in any way fault the author for choosing instead to have her mother double down and dig in her heels. I found this an entirely, sadly realistic portrayal of the way a mother might deal with her son's having committed rape, by clinging to her conviction that her son isn't that kind of boy.
I also want to give the book props for doing a great job of providing representation, even though I think maybe that whole angle might have been done more justice in a book centered entirely around questions of sexuality and gender identity. Still, it is a good thing to see characters from all over the spectrum represented in YA lit, and I hope this diversity trend becomes a permanent staple of the genre. I also appreciated that this book depicted anxiety in a realistic way, which is another type of representation that hasn't always been as prevalent in YA lit as it should have been. I don't expect nor even really want books to be full of life lessons. That's too preachy. But to me YA is different because it's targeted to adolescents, and at that stage of development it's important to see characters who resemble teens from all kind of backgrounds. I read both YA and adult, and I definitely think YA has the advantage when it comes to being progressive and offering more authors and marginalized people a voice. There is still a ton of work to be done, there's no doubt about that, but I'm hopeful that other genres will see what's happening in YA and get on board as well.
In the end, even though I can't give this book an enthusiastic five-star rating, I do think it's more than worth a read, and I would like to see it put into the hands of every teenager. Teens are especially vulnerable to sexual violence and relationship violence in general, and every teen, no matter their gender identity, needs to learn more about what is acceptable and unacceptable. Hopefully, someday, they'll do a better job of making this world a better and more equitable place than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have managed.
miriamtxrres's review against another edition
I didn't like the writing and the story was just not going anywhere.
calloe's review against another edition
5.0
https://camillaloesite.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/girl-made-of-stars-review/
abbyl819's review against another edition
5.0
4.5/4.75 stars
This book is sad and beautiful at the same time. The position that Mara is put into in this book is one of persisting struggles and indecision, and also helps her to come to terms with her own story. Mara made a lot of decisions that I didn’t agree with in the face of dealing with it all, but she is strong and grows and develops a lot as a character as a result of the many conflicts in this book. I will say that this is not a plot heavy book, but the powerful story of the characters makes up for it. The last two chapters in this book are particularly incredible, and had me crying. The authors note is also very powerful and worth reading.
This book is sad and beautiful at the same time. The position that Mara is put into in this book is one of persisting struggles and indecision, and also helps her to come to terms with her own story. Mara made a lot of decisions that I didn’t agree with in the face of dealing with it all, but she is strong and grows and develops a lot as a character as a result of the many conflicts in this book. I will say that this is not a plot heavy book, but the powerful story of the characters makes up for it. The last two chapters in this book are particularly incredible, and had me crying. The authors note is also very powerful and worth reading.
issianne's review against another edition
5.0
This book was amazing. I read it in two sittings in less than a day. It grabs you from the very beginning, begs you to empathize, and shakes you to your core. I had heard great things about it (and I don’t often read hard-hitting contemporary so it took me a while to get to) but holy crap this book is needed in the world.
jenhurst's review against another edition
5.0
I was really impressed with this book. The protagonists twin brother was accused of rape by her best friend. I liked seeing her grapple with her feelings and trying to figure out her feelings and who to believe. I liked seeing how her friend dealt with it as well. This is a heavy topic and handled well.
snikkidee's review against another edition
5.0
I almost gave this book 4 stars, but only because I am about 10 years too old for the target demographic, but it ended up making me cry. I couldn’t give any less than 5 stars to this book. 18 year old Nikki could’ve used this book. #metoo
thepetitepunk's review against another edition
5.0
Where do I even begin?
There's so much going on in this book—it's definitely not an easy read. Quite a few times I had to put it down and take a break because the topics are undeniably heavy and uncomfortable. Although there were many components to Girl Made of Stars, Ashley Herring Blake made it work. Her writing style is uniquely beautiful and her characters are realistically flawed. Of course, when dealing with such sensitive subjects, it's hard to maintain a story plot that is satisfying yet realistic. With so many strained relationships in Girl Made of Stars, I had no idea how Ashley Herring Blake would be able to tie everything together. Although the issue of rape and consent, which this book revolves around, affects all of the characters, everyone has their own individual problems which in consequence affect how they approach other issues. However, every issue presented in this book is thoroughly discussed. Even though the accusations of rape are what trigger a series of strong emotions, Blake makes its clear that all of the problems are important—not just the one everyone's talking about.
Again, be warned: this is an emotional read. But it is entirely worth it. From the writing to the characters to the complex plot to the overall message, everything about Girl Made of Stars will make you realize what it means to be human.
There's so much going on in this book—it's definitely not an easy read. Quite a few times I had to put it down and take a break because the topics are undeniably heavy and uncomfortable. Although there were many components to Girl Made of Stars, Ashley Herring Blake made it work. Her writing style is uniquely beautiful and her characters are realistically flawed. Of course, when dealing with such sensitive subjects, it's hard to maintain a story plot that is satisfying yet realistic. With so many strained relationships in Girl Made of Stars, I had no idea how Ashley Herring Blake would be able to tie everything together. Although the issue of rape and consent, which this book revolves around, affects all of the characters, everyone has their own individual problems which in consequence affect how they approach other issues. However, every issue presented in this book is thoroughly discussed. Even though the accusations of rape are what trigger a series of strong emotions, Blake makes its clear that all of the problems are important—not just the one everyone's talking about.
Again, be warned: this is an emotional read. But it is entirely worth it. From the writing to the characters to the complex plot to the overall message, everything about Girl Made of Stars will make you realize what it means to be human.