Stargirl Caraway is not your ordinary 16-year-old girl. All her life she was homeschooled, but this year, she will be the new girl at Mica Arizona High School. Stargirl wears bright and bubbly clothes, has a pet rat named Cinnamon and loves to sing Happy Birthday to people she does not even know. She is different from every other girl attending Mica High. Leo Borlock has lived in Arizona since he was twelve after his father passed. With no siblings, Leo and his mom have always been very close. Leo and his best friend Kevin run an in-school television show called Hot Seat. Leo is the director/producer while Kevin is the on-camera host. On the first day of school, Stargirl had gained the whole school’s attention. The name Stargirl was buzzing. From the first moment Leo saw Stargirl he had a crush on her. While Kevin thinks it would be an amazing idea to put Stargirl on their show, Leo is very hesitant about that idea. Kevin cares more about the ratings of the show when Leo thinks Stargirl will be hurt by the harsh critics and questions asked on the show. Leo cares about Stargirl a lot. Stargirl and Leo start to become friends and they become very close. When Stargirl becomes popular, people start to notice the things she is doing for the community to help them, but she does not understand that she is hurting the people in her town. The students at Mica High start to not like Stargirl anymore. She does not see what she is doing wrong. She even starts to get cocky. Leo questions staying close with her or not. He also wonders if he should she tell her that people are getting angry with her. When he finally figures out what to do everyone changes. Mica High is a whole new school.
I enjoyed reading this book a lot. If I were to rate it out of ten, I would give it a seven. I really liked the message this book gave to the readers. The message is that being unique is good because when you fit in and act like everyone else, no one will know your name. I really liked the plot of this story and how the story was very engaging. Throughout most parts of this book, it kept me wanting to keep reading. I know that when I read a book that I want to keep reading, I must feel engaged with the characters. That is exactly how I felt when reading this book. It had many unexpected twists that I was definitely not expecting. There were also a couple of things that I did not love about this book. The things I did not love about this book was that some parts of this book were very summarized and other parts were very drawn out. I wanted more detail in the summarized parts. Sometimes I found myself asking questions about the book that I thought should be answered, but they never were. Some parts of this book were also very drawn out that I did not think was very necessary. I wish that the author would have put more time into the more summarized parts of this book than the drawn-out parts. Overall, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves books about fitting in and a good realistic fiction love story. I think that everyone should hear the important message of this story. Everyone is a little bit different from everyone else and that is okay.
Reviewed by Deanna D., Grade 8