A review by theboricuabookworm
Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender

challenging emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A beautiful and heart wrenching romance that spans several years from their budding acting careers to their late in life settled down pursuits. Kacen handled incredibly difficult topics with such care and understanding. SA for the sake of SA in a book is something that will always turn me off from reading it but the way that our characters coped and processed and lived their experiences following such horrendous trauma is how all authors who include assault scenes or passed experiences should be writing. The acknowledgement that how the MC coped was not healthy nor productive but the author's refusal to make the audience shame him for his trauma response was was more poignant than I can properly put to words. **potential spoiler** A necessary third act breakup. It was not to create more drama or as the result of ridiculous miscommunication but rather a means for our MCs to take a step back, heal themselves - or put themselves on the path to healing - so that when they do eventually get back together it is when they are in a healthy, capable mindset to make a relationship work. 

This book provides a perfect capsule into how we genuinely do not know what someone is going through or has lived through because of how their public persona is. 

Note: the audiobook had different narrators for the two MCs but also for the blogs, news clippings, and tweets that made the book that much more engaging. I love the inclusion of the media and the outward perceptions to make the internal struggles and dialogues stand out that much more

I'm rambling at this point but this book is going to stick with me and I highly recommend you add it to your shelves.

Thank you Libro.fm for my advanced copy.

cw: rape (on page not long), sexual assault, memory and recounts of past child abuse and sexual assault of a minor, cyberbullying, emotional abuse, homophobia, biphobia, drug use, suicidal thoughts
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