Review: Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake

Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake (Bought)

Published: 15th May 2018 | Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers | Source: Bought
Ashley Herring Blake's Website

"I need Owen to explain this. Because yes, I do know that Owen would never do that, but I also know Hannah would never lie about something like that."

Mara and Owen are about as close as twins can get. So when Mara's friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn't know what to think. Can the brother she loves really be guilty of such a violent crime? Torn between the family she loves and her own sense of right and wrong, Mara is feeling lost, and it doesn't help that things have been strained with her ex-girlfriend and best friend since childhood, Charlie.

As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie navigate this new terrain, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits in her future. With sensitivity and openness, this timely novel confronts the difficult questions surrounding consent, victim blaming, and sexual assault. From Goodreads.

Trigger Warning: This book features discussion of rape, child abuse/paedophilia, biphobia, and pressure on non-binary character to come out.

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Why Authors Coming Out Is an Incredible Thing, For So Many Reasons

I am so proud to be a part of the YA community, and book Twitter in general. We're passionate about the books we read, and the authors who write them. And we are, for the most part, a hugely supportive and accepting. Being so I'm sure has helped the wonderful authors who have recently come to announce to the world who they really are.

Very recently, and over the past year or so, we have seen authors come out on Twitter and elsewhere online:

• YA author Juno Dawson, formerly James Dawson, came out as transgender back in October 2015. 
• For Queer Romance Month, to talk about his own gender identity, NA (and soon to be YA author!) author Elliot Wake, formerly Leah Raeder, wrote Why I Wrote Cam Girl, then on 1st January, came out as transgender.
• YA author Chelsea M. Cameron also chose the beginning of the year to come out.
• And Ashley Herring Blake, whose debut YA novel Suffer Love is published this year, came out as bisexual last year.

You might think, why is this any of our business? Well, for trans authors, we need to know their change of name in order for fans to buy their future books which will be written under their real name. But otherwise, surely it isn't really something we need to know, like with an author's sexuality, right?

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