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lavenderlexophile 's review for:
Star-Crossed
by Barbara Dee
When I think of this book, the expression "beautiful cinnamon roll too pure for this world" comes to mind. While there were a few places where the story felt more like slightly heavy-handed attempts to explain Shakespeare to kids and sell them on his work, the vast majority of this book was a joy. All the cliches of book reactions were true: I laughed, I cried, I stayed up way too late reading it. And I'm an adult who almost never reads middle grade.
Things I loved about this book:
-It's not just a story *about* Romeo and Juliet, it's (to some extent) a *retelling* of Romeo and Juliet. It's great fun to see how the original Romeo and Juliet elements get mapped onto a contemporary setting. The Montagues and Capulets as rival middle-school cliques -- brilliant.
-Characters felt surprisingly well-rounded, for example: a friend who can also be a little obnoxious; a sister who can be a bit spoiled/bratty but is also a very loving and caring big sister to Mattie; a handsome athletic boy who's more than the dumb jock he pretends to be; and a "popular girl" antagonist who also stands up to a classmate about his homophobic remark.
-The way even the scariest parts of coming out to yourself/others are portrayed very gently. Even when Mattie feels nervous and a little lost, she's still a generally happy and well-adjusted kid.
-There were some pretty hilarious lines.
(List continues with spoilers):
-The way Mattie comes out to people and they just absorb the information matter-of-factly without it having to be a big production
-The fact that Mattie didn't come out to everyone or to her parents by the end of the book! The question "Are you out?" doesn't always have a simple yes-or-no answer, and I loved seeing a reflection of that more nuanced reality.
-The way almost everyone Mattie knows is supportive and accepting of gay people, but she's still hesitant to identify as anything other than "having a crush on Gemma." That felt very true to my experience.
Things I didn't love:
-The Asian friend is "the smart one." While she does definitely have other, arguably more salient, character traits and isn't a cardboard cutout, it would have been nice if the blonde friend had been "the smart one" and the Asian friend the weird, outgoing, borderline-obnoxious one.
(Spoiler)
-I wouldn't mind if I never read another instance of a character being mad that someone didn't come out to them sooner. However, they're not *very* mad or for very long, and they're thirteen-year-old girls, so it's easy to see this as a reasonably realistic reaction given the "tell your friends everything" culture often present in teen girl friendships.
On the whole, I want to hug this book and hug all the characters and buy a copy for every school in the English-speaking world and send the book back in time to my middle-school self.
Things I loved about this book:
-It's not just a story *about* Romeo and Juliet, it's (to some extent) a *retelling* of Romeo and Juliet. It's great fun to see how the original Romeo and Juliet elements get mapped onto a contemporary setting. The Montagues and Capulets as rival middle-school cliques -- brilliant.
-Characters felt surprisingly well-rounded, for example: a friend who can also be a little obnoxious; a sister who can be a bit spoiled/bratty but is also a very loving and caring big sister to Mattie; a handsome athletic boy who's more than the dumb jock he pretends to be; and a "popular girl" antagonist who also stands up to a classmate about his homophobic remark.
-The way even the scariest parts of coming out to yourself/others are portrayed very gently. Even when Mattie feels nervous and a little lost, she's still a generally happy and well-adjusted kid.
-There were some pretty hilarious lines.
(List continues with spoilers):
-The fact that Mattie didn't come out to everyone or to her parents by the end of the book! The question "Are you out?" doesn't always have a simple yes-or-no answer, and I loved seeing a reflection of that more nuanced reality.
-The way almost everyone Mattie knows is supportive and accepting of gay people, but she's still hesitant to identify as anything other than "having a crush on Gemma." That felt very true to my experience.
Things I didn't love:
-The Asian friend is "the smart one." While she does definitely have other, arguably more salient, character traits and isn't a cardboard cutout, it would have been nice if the blonde friend had been "the smart one" and the Asian friend the weird, outgoing, borderline-obnoxious one.
(Spoiler)
On the whole, I want to hug this book and hug all the characters and buy a copy for every school in the English-speaking world and send the book back in time to my middle-school self.