I originally planned to review this as part of my regular mini book review posts, but the length of the review just got out of hand, so I feel it deserves a full post!
Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake is one of those books that I think is such an important read. The topic is so hard mentally to read, but the writing made it very accessible – I was hooked by it.
It’s a simple premise – Mara and Owen are twins and very close. But after a party, Mara’s friend Hannah, Owen’s girlfriend, accuses him of rape. Who should Mara choose to believe, when both parties say their testimonial is the truth? Alongside this, Mara is exploring her relationship with her ex-girlfriend and best friend, Charlie, as well as facing a trauma from her past that changed the way she moved through the world.
I actually received an ARC of this book all the way back in 2018 – I’m still working my way through a backlog of books! But weirdly I’m glad I didn’t read this one until now. At that time, I was child-free; now I have a 6 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. Reading this as a parent hit me a lot harder than I think it would have otherwise done, especially as a parent of both a boy and a girl. The messages of consent and belief had such a big impact on me. Of course, we’re already starting to teach them both the importance of the consent, and that you can say no, and everything else that goes hand in hand with this. But here we see parents who, as far as we can tell from the story, are good parents, especially the mother who is in full support of her daughter’s fights against the patriarchy at school, even when it goes against school rules. But something has still gone wrong. It’s a lot of pressure, and was so believable. I think had I read it in 2018, I’d be seeing it through Mara’s eyes a lot more; now I see it through the parents’ eyes too, and it’s daunting and terrifying.
It’s a YA book, but obviously I’d go in with trigger warnings, and I think I’d want to know if my daughter was reading it when she was older so I could be prepared to discuss what it brings up. And having read it as a grown up with children, I think it’s a book that is also brilliant for our generation too. The growth in the book is very mature; at times, I feel Mara handles the unique position that she’s been put in better than I would now!
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It’s a book of truths, truths that are hard to face and hard to believe. I hate to admit this, but my initial reaction to the plot was along the lines of questioning Hannah like everyone at school, and even those investigating do – for example, she’s in a relationship with him, she went off into the woods with him. It’s something ingrained over many years that’s hard to break down, and I’m so glad I had this book to help me to recognise the prejudices that still sit in my brain planted by the seeds of rape culture over the years. It’s nothing something I want to recognise in myself, but I think it’s important to so that I can break that down.
The story also handles bisexuality well, and a non-binary character coming to terms with how they feel about themselves. I personally think these parts were done exceptionally well. I’ve seen some criticism of how, despite Charlie saying they feel neither and both male and female, Mara continues to describe them with she/her pronouns. I get this, but I think the way that Mara and Charlie are discovering this about Charlie’s identity together isn’t Mara erasing that, but realistic of them both coming to terms with it and trying to figure out how they want to move forwards.
So as I said, a hugely important, heart wrenching read, very realistic and an absolute must-read.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for a review copy of this book.
