“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”15.

Stargirl, whose real name is Susan, is different. She can not be categorized into a certain clique. She knows who everyone is and everyone’s birthdays. She is also the nicest person at Mica High and is oblivious to meanness towards herself. At first everyone thinks she’s weird, then they like her, then they decide she is awful and shun her. Everyone except Leo, her boyfriend, but with everyone against Stargirl, Leo isn’t sure if he values Stargirl or popularity more. Readers wil be torn between Stargirl and the rest of the school.

Stargirl keeps readers turning the page with its themes concerning peer pressure, young love, tough decisions, being different, discovering who you are, and what you want. Thanks to Jerry Spinelli’s story character development, such as how Leo realizes that she’s pretty much the realest person at Mica High whereas in the beginning Leo thinks Stargirl is fake. The sensory descriptions help readers visualize, such as Leo describing how the woman flicked her bogger in the mall and the setting sun in the desert.

The target audience of Stargirl is teens, because Stargirl deals with problems that real life teens face and the writing could help teens realize they are not alone in feeling like no one understands them and in having to make tough decisions. The book could also help teens figure out how to deal with a problem that is troubling them, and could help teens make choices they won’t regret.

Overall, I rated Stargirl a bella and would recommend it to anybody who loves a page turner. If you want a story that discusses tough topics, keeps you on the edge of your seat and gives you great ideas like a happiness wagon, then Stargirl is the book for you.

ISBN number 0-439-44443-8
186 pages
© 2000