Stargirl By: Jerry Spinelli

This six weeks I read Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. Stargirl was copyrighted in 2000 and is a fictional novel. Stargirl also has a sequel called; Love, Stargirl. Stargirl features a strange and free-spirited girl whose name is Stargirl Caraway; she owns a rat named Cinnamon and is going to public school for the first time ever in her life. Although she’s a tenth grader, she especially catches the eye of eleventh grader, Leo Borlock. Leo and Stargirl have a strong relationship and share feelings for each other. In the middle of the story, Leo starts to lose feelings for Stargirl because everyone in the school is criticizing her for being herself.  Everyone she loves pulls away from her, so for a while she’s no longer Stargirl, she’s just Susan Caraway. In the end, Stargirl moves to Minnesota and Leo wishes that he had not tried to make Stargirl change. The overall theme of this book is to be yourself, no matter what.

            Stargirl is told in first-person from Leo’s perspective. The plot is mainly focused on how Stargirl, who thought she had her personality figured out, is now questioning it due to other people’s opinions. The intended audience is young girls and teens ranging from about 10 to 15 years old. The genre of this book is realistic fiction because although it’s a made up story, it focuses on real-life concepts and situations. I suspect Spinelli probably based some of his characters on real people. The author kept me interested because he created fascinating characters. The author’s style of writing is to pick a controversial topic and turn it into a real-life situation where the characters begin to question themselves. I think this is effective for the author’s intended audience because his intended audience include lots of people who are at a stage of life where they are meeting new people and experiencing new things which may make them question their abilities and personalities.

            This book affected me in a positive way, because I had read this book once before when I was younger and I didn’t really understand what the author was trying to express. Now that I have read it again, I understand that the author was trying to say “stay true to yourself”, which is a lesson that has helped me a lot in my life since then. This fits in with my own personal view on the world because throughout the years, I have watched as many of my friends have changed in ways I have not liked. Many of them have become meaner, and I don’t recognize them anymore, I know also that I have changed, because I’m afraid of what people will think of me if I act myself. We all experience something like this in our lives when we question our own personalities and start to think, “Am I good enough?” Stargirl reminds me of the book I read last six weeks called Perks of Being a Wallflower. They don’t have the same messages in them, but they both really connected with me and they both had a strong impact on my life.

I enjoyed this book because even though it is a fictional book, it connects with a lot of things that teenagers struggle with today. Although I enjoyed this book, I don’t consider it one of my favorites because I don’t feel it’s as “unique” as some of the other books I have read. I strongly recommend this book because even though this wasn’t my favorite book, I think it teaches a lesson that everybody should learn.

 

Madeline Jones

12/18/13

RATING: ****4/5