Reviews with content warning for Lesbophobia - The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

Audre and Mabel have a sweet little romance. I haven't read any YA in a while, and I missed it. I appreciate how Petrus describes both Minneapolis and Port of Spain with such familiarity and love. She can paint such loving scenes of family and friends supporting one another.

It's impossible for me not to compare this book to The Fault in Our Stars. Though they have a really similar basic premise, they each deal with love and death and grief in totally different ways. I relate much more strongly to the pessimism and spiritual doubt of TFIOS than the optimism of The Stars and the Blackness Between Them. Because I'm John Green trash, I know that he wrote TFIOS based on his experience serving as a hospital chaplain for teens with cancer - an experience which made him decide not to become a priest - and that really shows in Hazel's anger and despair and "what if God - I mean, the author, I mean, Peter Van Houten - is real and wants nothing to do with us?" Petrus being a Black woman already gives her a different perspective than John Green, and I wonder what life experiences inspired her.

I didn't expect New Age spirituality to be so intrinsic to the book - to the point that it's somewhere on the border between realistic and speculative fiction. It made me more mindful of my biases and attitudes about things like astrology and past lives - I have to constantly remind myself that my own religion would sound just as weird if it weren't the dominant religion in the United States. There were some anti-medicine/"food is medicine" vibes too, though, which concerns me a little.

Despite all that... I liked the ending.

Content Warnings

discworldwitch's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

A beautiful book that reads like poetry. It’s wonderful that this story exists.

Content Warnings

bookdragon217's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

"The Blackness between the stars is the melanin in your skin. I read it in a book. I take it to mean that as Black folks we are limitless. That, maybe, our blackness holds our dreams, not just churches and Bibles?"

I finished this one earlier in the week and I am still basking in the glow of the magic in its pages. Junauda Petrus' writing skills are gold. I especially love the structure of the book because it wove in astrology, feminism, ancestral powers, magical realism, spirituality and healing, queer love and astronomy. She showed out with this treasure and reminds the world that Black people are magic PERIOD!

I loved the dual point of views of Audre and Mabel. Their characters had depth and I enjoyed their transformations and adjustments to their new situations. My heart broke for the abuse and eventual uprooting that Audrey faced for being a queer Trinidadian. Mabel's storyline was a gut punch very early on. I loved the exploration of their identities through books, horoscope and ancestral gifts of healing. Petrus made every scene on the page come alive. I know the ancestors approve because this book was an ode to the beauty and magic of Blackness and an offering to thank them for all their knowledge and talents.

Not only did this book have great quotes but it also expanded on interesting themes:

🌠 Family is sometimes made and not just blood ties.
🌌 Freedom starts in the mind and heart.
🌠 Black identity and feminism is magic and transcends what is seen.
🌌 Knowing yourself fully requires knowledge of all that ancestors have to teach.
🌠 To see the future, you may have to visit the past.
🌌 Trusting yourself and your inherent gifts is crucial to your identity.
🌠 Love is meant to be free, not boxed into categories.
🌌 Understanding multiple forms of spirituality help you experience humanity fully.
🌠 Blackness is limitless.
🌌 There is no place in the world for hate of any kind.
🌠 You have to be uprooted in order to bloom where you're supposed to.
🌌 Identity is a lifelong journey and not a linear pathway with only one option.
🌠 Books open minds, save lives & provide healing.
🌌 True healing is holistic.

This book will live in my heart forever.

Content Warnings

courtneyfalling's review against another edition

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emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This was recommended to me as a sapphic romance with two Black MCs, one of whom is chronically ill, which... isn't exactly accurate. I wasn't prepared to enter a book where one of the MCs is terminally ill... I am very beyond the "dying girl" sick lit trope and really want characters to live beyond their expected deaths, to get to become chronically ill or disabled and survive.

The book does create a beautifully lyrical and spiritual relationship between the two MCs and others in their lives, but at times some plot points felt rushed

including the walkout in Mabel's honor, Audre's relationship-building with her dad, and Mabel's cancer diagnosis and acceptance of impending death without question

and it took me into the second half of the book before Queenie felt like a real character, not a highly idealized figure without her own substance.

The ending also came really suddenly and left me more confused than anything, as to how literally I should interpret Mabel and Afua turning into butterflies. It cast doubt on the end of Afua's plot line in particular, whether he would have his case revisited and leave incarceration or if he still faces the death penalty (and thus death) anyway.

Content Warnings

yvonne_cl's review

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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