Stargirl

Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: Not an Ordinary Teenager
Stargirl, is a realistic fiction novel by Jerry Spinelli. The book tells about individuality, love, hate, friendship, peer pressure, and differences within it's story.
In Mica Arizona, Leo Borloc is entering 11th grade. All the students could talk about that day was "her". She called herself Stargirl Caraway, she wore long flowing dresses and kimonos, carried her pet rat everywhere, and played the ukulele at lunch. She stunned Mica high like nothing had before. She was different in a way they couldn't quite grasp. She showed them something they had never seen before, something that would change them forever.
Stargirl entered public school for her first time in 10th grade; she had been home schooled before then. Her dreams of being a lunch truck driver, and her random acts of kindness brought excitement to the hallways. The other kids think she was just a plant by the school to stir things up. Later her peers realize that's not true and she is instantly the most popular person in school, individuality sprouts up everywhere and on everyone. She becomes a cheerleader too, and Leo is in love with her. She too falls for him. Leo thought it was too perfect to be true, and he was right.
The school turns on Stargirl, they can't take their own cheerleader, cheering for the other team, or just how different she is. She is shunned for everything that makes her different, everything that once made her popular. Leo desperately tells her to become the one thing that can destroy her; normal. With the help of Leo, she becomes like a typical teenager. Something is still wrong, she is not happy, she goes back to non-conformity and eventually leaves Mica, Arizona all together, leaving nothing but memories for lucky ones that's knew her.
The first thing that really gets the reader's attention in Stargirl is how familiar the characters, setting, and plot is. Leo, Kevin, Hillary and Wayne, all characters in Stargirl, act, dress, speak and react to others just like people the reader might know. Just like actions seen in about every high school today. The easiest part to relate to in the story is when Leo is being shunned by his peers for being in love with Stargirl. He must chose what he values more, Stargirl's love or his friends and peers friendship. Many teens today are faced with questions like that or similar ones.
The characters in Stargirl all slightly resemble teenagers that most people would know today. Leo is an average teen boy who is struggling to keep out of the spotlight but stay in the circle of popularity. Hillary is a snotty, stuck up, feminine, cheerleader type girl. Wayne is like the one person who sets all the standards for school, he leads the school but from the back of the parade. Dori is a faithful friend who wants to be popular but is rejected for all she's worth, all she wants is a friend. Lastly Stargirl is like no one you have ever known before, but yet in a way like the one person who rebels all the popular stuff and walks to the beat of their own drum. We all know one person like that; some of us just fail to realize it. We can all find someone in our own lives like the characters in Stargirl the book is very realistic.
Stargirl takes place is Mica, Arizona. Mica High is like an average high school in the US; the other important setting in the story is the house of Archie and his cactus Senor Saguaro. The weekly meeting of "The Loyal Order of the Stone Bone" takes place at Archie's house. He is also repeatedly consulted for problems from both Stargirl and Leo. The setting in Stargirl is not as realistic as the characters, but still a place that could exist.
The plot in Stargirl is the most realistic series of events in a book that is non-fiction. The shunning of an individual, trying to fit in with clothing and not being accepted, is just like things seen in hallways at schools. The most interesting part of the story is the fact that Stargirl works delivering flowers and cards to people who need a little cheering up, she still does this wanting remain anonymous. She performs these "random acts of kindness" as a hobby.
Stargirl is a story of individuality, love, hate, friendship, peer pressure, and differences. Stargirl was from a selected group of people blessed with a different way of being "a little more in touch with the stuff we're made of" and that makes her amazing. The reader will most definitely enjoy this book, and never forget about Stargirl or any of the occurrences at Mica High. Maybe they'll agree; she had something that the rest of us didn't, something out of our reach, something different. She wasn't an ordinary teenager.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book
Review: This book was really great. It tells of Leo falling in love with the new girl at school, who is an extremely unique person. Leo likes her so much that he will do(and he does) almost anything to get her to notice her. I couldn't put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: a dangerous book, as Stargirl's character didn't add up
Review: My problem with Stargirl was that her character didn't add up on an emotional level. Spinelli made her into a being of supposedly higher consciousness - an attempt for which I commend him - yet as an author he had no idea what the character of someone of higher consciousness would actually be like. What he didn't understand about her character he simply disguised as mysterious, mystical and elusive. Yet if she were really as marvelous and wonderful and insightful and deep as she was supposed to be, she would never have been so elusive. I think she would have been more sincere and upfront, honest about what she was really feeling, not always throwing questions back at the narrator like some sort of deceptive psychotherapist.

We all have desires to break from the mold, to be unique, to stand up to the heartless crowd (ultimately our parents), to be the SELVES we really are deep down under it all. That's why the beginning of the book was so beautiful...and terrifying...because Stargirl clearly did it. She was her own person...unique and gutsy and bizarre...she had come out the other side of fakeness...she had some mysterious other-worldly quality. Yet when Spinelli dug deeper into her and tried to make her into a full and real character, one who had feelings and who interacted, he failed to break through her mystery. The more he described her, the clearer it became that he had no idea what made her tick, that he was out of his league as a writer. So he faked it, and made her a disciple of silly pursuits like self-denying meditation...note this...SELF-DENYing. Since Spinelli couldn't describe her SELF he just did the opposite...took the easy way out and made her HERSELF deny herself.

As such, as the book went on it became more and more wooden, black and white: Stargirl polarized against the WHOLE school, and having no comprehension of why, nor any feelings of regret - not even a three year old would believe that. Maybe that's the problem, that a three year old wouldn't believe this book, because a three year old is too emotionally honest to believe the kind of deception Spinelli weaves. And then the issue of Stargirl in a "beautiful" romance - completely fake, no flesh and blood emotions behind it, simply inserted to catch and titillate an adolescent audience...but no emotionally consistent reason for it being in the book, or in line with her unique character.

Stargirl is the character we would all like to be, and Spinelli realizes this, as he apparently wants to be it himself, but he as an author lacks the emotional insight to lead us further down the path toward self-understanding. What we're left with in Stargirl is a frustrating book that actually takes us in the opposite direction from real self-understanding, and instead toward self-denial...which is exactly what the real Stargirl - unlike the one Spinelli wrote about - would NEVER do. I sense Spinelli worships Milton Erickson, the famous and not coincidentally Arizona hypnotherapist who "cured" people by making them more dissociated, and in one famous case study "cured" a female patient by instructing her to give away - get this - African violets, and she became the famous lady of dissociated goodwill.

An author who shines real light on the path toward making a Stargirl is Alice Miller, and deceptive, mysterious, feelingless and self-denying she is NOT!

All in all, Spinelli does to the real Stargirl what so many modern Christians do to Jesus, tries to make them into something they're not, and yet set them up as an ideal at the same time, because they know that deep down we all want what the real Jesus and the real Stargirl had.. For this reason I see this book, like much of modern religion, as dangerous...

Rating:
Summary: The Sweetest Book I've Ever Read
Review: Stargirl caught my attention at the local bookstore, mostly from the title, but also from the cover. I had to buy it. I was not disappointed. I love this book, it's the sweetest, most enspiring book I've read since... forever.

Stargirl is exceptional, and opens eyes to the reality of cruelty and judgement, for taking her as what she is, a nice, sweet person. She's different, yes, but unlike Them, she doesn't care about popularity and what other people think, but still continues to care for them and be sweet to them.

Leo Borlock is the narrator of the book, a sixteen-year-old boy starving for love and effection, but also for popularity and friends. He wants it all... and he soon finds out he can't have it all. If he wants love, he has Stargirl. If he wants populatiry, he has Them. He can't have both.

This is the most wonderful book I have ever read, the sweetest novel I've ever enspired, and it opened my eyes to reality. The story of love, effection, populatiry and friends. The story of choices and first love, of judgement and kindness. The only book to have it all... Stargirl.

Rating:
Summary: What can I say?
Review: Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, is a phenomanal book. It tells the story of Susan Caraway, better known as Stargirl. Stargirl enters Mica High School as a sophmore, after being home-schooled for the previous 10 years. Stargirl is much different than other people. She strums her ukelele in the school cafeteria, brings her rat Cinnamon to school with her, and she wears period clothing sewn by her own mother. In the words of 16-year-old narrator Leo Borlock, "She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew."
This book tells the story of unconformity, of love, of popularity, and of kindness. Stargirl shows that things like love and kindness are better qualities then beauty and popularity. A red apple amongst a sea of green, Stargirl sticks out like a sore thumb. Though her popularity soars at the beginning, her deep kindness for others destroyed it. Cheering for the other team, sending mysterious cards, and just plain being nice set her apart from everyone else. This novel shows that sometimes the unpopular people are the ones that can teach you the most, and if you haven't read Stargirl, you are seriously missing out on something!

Rating:
Summary: A Star of a Person
Review: She is a unique teenage girl who feels free to be herself in the midst of conformity, is oblivious to what others think of her, and is friendly to everyone no matter what they do or say to her. She is Stargirl. Her behavior is as unpredictable as the clothes she will wear each day, and her unbelievable kindness to other's wins her only two friends. Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, may look like an ordinary book, but it holds more than you could imagine inside. The students at Mica High don't know what to think of a girl who carries around a pet rat, plays her ukulele at lunch, and changes her name when she feels she has outgrown it. "She's not real," Stargirl's fellow students say, but they are wrong; Stargirl is more real than any of them. This book is about choosing to be yourself rather than having others like you for someone you're not, which is a hard thing to do in today's society. This is the best book I ever read. I recommend it for everyone who is able to appreciate the differences in people.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book!
Review: My friend suggest I read Jerry Spinelli's "Stargirl" since she really liked it. Her and I differ in books (when it comes to likes), but this one we both agree on. It is my favorite book now, and I can identify so much with Stargirl. It is a wonderful story that kept me hooked until I finished it. Jerry is a wonderful author and does a great job at discripitve writing. I strongly suggest this book for anyone from ages 13 on up. I'm trying to get my 44 year old mother to read it! Very much so worth anyone's time!

Rating:
Summary: I love this book!
Review: In a nutshell, Stargirl celebrates individuality! At a time when most of us are developing our personas, peer pressure prevents us from developing into creative individuals. At first, her classmates think she is weird then popular and then ....

I'll let you start the journey. Provides great food for thought on self-esteem.

Rating:
Summary: For all the cooks out there...
Review: Stargirl definitely validates the quirks in us all! Stargirl is a funny, intersting look at what it is like to be the "weird" girl!

I loved it!

Rating:
Summary: I wish someone was like Stargirl at my school
Review: I LOVED this book! I read it then less than a day and I was so disapointed that it was over! This book sends a powerful message that I thought about all day long. In a way, I'm kind of like Stargirl, only not that radical. I was liked at first then shunned from the crowds. This has to be one of Jerry Spinelli's finest books. I hope there is a sequel!!!!!