Girl Made of Stars

By: Ashley Herring Blake

Narrated by: Krystal Hammond

Girl Made of Stars is a timely, emotionally gripping story about facing hard truths of consent and victim blaming in the aftermath of sexual assault, while shining a light on the story of a survivor with sensitivity and hope. For fans of Girl in Pieces and The Way I Used to Be.

Mara and Owen are as close as twins can get, so when Mara's friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn't know what to think. Can her brother really be guilty of such a violent act? Torn between her family and her sense of right and wrong, Mara feels lost, and it doesn't help that things are strained with her ex-girlfriend, Charlie. As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie come together in the aftermath of this terrible crime, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits into her future.

Confronting difficult questions surrounding consent, victim blaming, and sexual assault, Girl Made of Stars is a timely, emotionally gripping novel that shines a light on the story of a survivor with sensitivity and hope.

©2018 Ashley Herring Blake (P)2023 Tantor

Angsty

What if you loved your twin brother more than all the stars in the sky? What if that brother did something unforgivable? What if your brother raped his girlfriend?

Mara doesn’t want to believe Owen raped Hannah, one of her best friends, but she knows in her heart he did. Her feminist mother, once championed survivors, now tells Mara to stand behind Owen and dismiss Hannah. Mara has secrets she’s never told anyone. The bullying and slut shaming Hannah experiences reinforces Mara’s resolve to never tell anyone what happened to her.

Mara is such a complex character. She misses her BFF and ex girlfriend Charlie and also exploring a relationship with Alex, a close friend of Owen. I easily envisioned a family like hers, pro-victim until the golden child is the perp. The pressure Mara’s parents put on her felt as realistic as it was frustrating.

The words Ashley Herring Blake writes are so beautiful they practically dance off the pages (kindle screen). She gave Mara a voice filled with pain, determination and strength, haunting and memorable.

GIRL MADE OF STARS is filled with diversity where that diversity is just part of the characters’ complexity, not the entire story. Sexual orientation and Charlie’s gender expression are a strong component of Mara’s relationship with both Charlie and Alex.

The importance of GIRL MADE OF STARS struck me throughout the book from microaggressions to overt slut-shaming to misogyny. In one instance Mara is suspended for 2 days, one for a too-short skirt and the other for behaving in an unladylike manner.

I don’t need endings to wrap novels in a pretty bow, but I would have liked to know the disposition of one subplot (saying more would be a spoiler). The pace of the story could have been faster. I paused reading several times without the feeling I wanted to continue ASAP. Despite GIRL MADE OF STARS hitting all the right buttons, I didn’t feel the emotional connection I mostly do with stories about the aftermath of rape.

GIRL MADE OF STARS captured the pulse of society’s #MeToo movement and the realities of life without perfect resolutions and full justice for survivors of sexual violence.

A must read

Beautifully and whimsically at times in prose but a very relevant and real story that everyone should read