Book Review: Love, Stargirl

[osprey_archer]

I love, love, LOVE Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl - when I first read it, especially, I wanted desperately to be just like Stargirl, fearless and unique and amazing.

So I was pretty excited when the sequel, Love, Stargirl, came out - except that I got it from the library, and couldn't finish it.

I picked it up at the library again this week, and did finish it this time, but I can't say I made the wrong choice when I passed on it a few years back. It lacks the ferocious narrative drive and joy of the original; the characters never flair into the same burning life.

Moreover, it continues the romance from Stargirl. This might seem like a reasonable choice, except that Stargirl's ex, Leo, never actually appears in the book except in conversations that Stargirl imagines having with him. He's halfway across the country. The romance mainly consists of Stargirl pining.

Stargirl. The fabulous Stargirl! Pining. For Leo Borlock, who is decent enough but totally unworthy of being pined after, especially by Stargirl. He's unworthy of Stargirl even when they're in the same state, for goodness' sake!

But even this is not the main problem. No, the main problem is the fact that Stargirl is the first person narrator. In the first book, Stargirl is larger than life, almost a force of nature, like a kind-hearted teenage Captain Jack Sparrow. Making the reader privy to her inner doubts inevitably diminishes her.

Just think what would happen if The Great Gatsby, say, were written from Gatsby's point of view. Through Nick Carraway's eyes, Gatsby possesses a tragic grandeur; but if we had to listen to the vicissitudes of his petty obsession with the girl who got away, the sordid details of his money-making schemes, all the glamour would wear off. And that would be a crying shame.

***

A side note. Stargirl would make an amazing movie - the dramatic desert setting, Stargirl's zany clothes, the giant conga line dancing into the night at the end - and now would be the exact right time to make it, to catch the 'be yourself!' zeitgeist gushing around. Maybe one of the Fanning sisters could play Stargirl? They're both incredibly talented. It would be so amazing!

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I deviate from you on opinions about Star Girl! D:

Maybe because I read it as an adult? Or maybe I just didn't get it?

Oh well, people can't overlap all the time. *sigh*

(Also, I didn't end up reading cover to cover because I was frustrated with it, and if I had--if I had given it a proper chance--maybe I would have felt differently)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

But, but, but... Stargirl was AMAZING. She had a pet rat! She dropped pennies for children! She played a ukelele!!! (That's such a fun word to say.)

But I can see how reading it for the first time as an adult, she might be a bit much to take? What frustrated you about the book exactly?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It was partly that: the absolute nonconformist perfection of her. And partly I felt like--and this probably was the adult in me, and the looking-for-a-different-story problem [read the story that's given, self, not some other story that you want the story to be!]--it was just such a tired old story, the be-yourself-ism, the special-in-your-strangeness. Everything seemed so unsubtle, so broadcast at high volume, I guess? I felt like, this doesn't really get at the subtleties of what it means to nonconform, or what the problems really are. But honestly, I read like a few pages, and then a few pages more, and then a few pages over here, and thought, nope, not gonna finish. So maybe if I read it again, not doing that, I'd have a different perspective.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

You might, but with Stargirl the incredibly high volume is the point, so if that's what bothered you it's probably not worthwhile to read it. It's a very teenage book.

I feel like I'm insulting it by saying that, but I don't mean it insultingly - it's just that it's message is one that lots of teenagers want to hear and to hear LOUDLY. Sort of like a literary version of Glee.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

*nods* --and I think if I think of it as a *style*, then I can say to myself that it's just a style of narrative that's not my cup of tea, rather than that the book is bad, if you know what I mean. (I'm not a big fan of Glee either. Jeez, I'm such a killjoy!)

[boo.livejournal.com]

OMG Stargirl was my favorite book for so long! I can't believe I almost forgot about it ♥

I didn't know there was a sequel, but I don't think I'll risk reading it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I loooooooved Stargirl. I must have checked it out of the library five hundred times.

And yeah, the sequel undercuts many of the things that make Stargirl so awesome. Not worth it.

[boo.livejournal.com]

oh you should just buy the book and have it forever <3

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Well, I feel like a lame fan! Stargirl is one of my alltime favorite books, and I didn't know there was a sequel. Now I'm glad I didn't, because I'd have read it and been disappointed! Wah! Like I wish I'd never read Lois Lowry's "Messenger" and "Gathering Blue" after "The Giver." Just...meh.

Have you read Milkweed, by Spinelli?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I HATED MESSENGER AND GATHERING BLUE SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH. I can't believe that I actually read Messenger, given how much I loathed and despised Gathering Blue, but maybe I was hoping that it would make the series awesome again.

But instead we just meet Jonas again (although IIRC he's never exactly identified as such, just in case people were invested in the idea that he died at the end of The Giver), and he's become boring and faintly holy. And then... did the main character die at the end? I think he did, but I was so irritated by the whole enterprise by then that I've actually forgotten.

I haven't read Milkweed. What's it about?

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't like Gathering Blue, but read Messenger hoping it would round things out. Nope.

Oh, Milkweed. OH! Poland ghettos, WW2, children left behind after all the adults are taken away, the days of plenty and happy orphanland becoming hunger and danger and grief. All done as only Jerry Spinelli can. He breaks your heart while making you smile at the same time. It might TIE with Stargirl as my favorite of his stuff.

I loved Loser too.