Jerry Spinelli

I feel like Stargirl is a strange little book, but it's a good kind of strange. The kind of strange that makes a bit more sense as an adult.

From an adult's point of view, Stargirl feels like an examination on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in a middle/high school setting with that middle/high school lens. You admire what's different and strange, you crave it, you want it for your own, but once you have it, appreciating it as it is becomes difficult since society (and you yourself) may want to change that strange, unusual and precious thing. Stargirl herself is a manic pixie dream girl for our main character, but we also see her growing and changing both for the betterment of the strained society that is high school, but also for herself. The story feels incomplete, but that's because our characters, and our titular Stargirl is still growing and still writing her life's story.

To my surprise, this book ended up getting a musical adaptation on Disney+ - and it's pretty faithful to the book save for changing up a few details regarding the main character's backstory (swapping out an uncle for a father), and some details with Stargirl's clothing choices (though I imagine that was just fashion crew having fun when filming), and the songs really helped bring the story to life in movie form.… (mer)

“…the history of a kid is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball.”

Homelessness = sad. Allergic to pizza? Devastating! 😆 But in all seriousness, this is a pretty decent read, that touches on issues of homelessness and race. Maybe 'lightly' touches is a more accurate description, as someone as famous as Maniac would probably not be allowed to be unhoused and not in school in a 'real' town, East End or West End. And the really uninformed things some of the white people 'say' in this book seem otherworldly ignorant, and I wondered several times what year this was supposed to be occurring in? (yes, I do know how ignorant some folks are, but many of the questions that Grayson asks are just... come on!)

At the end of the book, I just hoped Maniac would end up in school and using his physical gifts to his benefit! As a baseball nut myself, I hope he ended up on the diamond!… (mer)