Looking Through Candy Eyes: Love, Stargirl

"Our hearts yearn backward. We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given

up and gone home. But I no longer want to be found, Leo. Do not follow me!

Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are.

You'll be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow.

Let the stars keep track of us. Let's ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet.

May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!!

Love and Love and Love Again,

Stargirl

Love, Stargirl is the sequel to Jerry Spinelli's bestselling book, Stargirl. For the first time, we finally get a view of Stargirl's mind as this book is written in her perspective. The book is known as the "world's longest letter" written in diary form. The book started on New Year's Day when Stargirl started writing to Leo through her diary. There she wrote everything that happens to her, her experiences in her new town, her longing for the lost love, and her suffering as she goes through her first heartbreak when Leo abandoned her.

The book is basically about Stargirl's encounters with new people in her life and how she deals with her everyday problems and blues. Stargirl is still Stargirl. Eccentric but sweet in her own way. In this book, Stargirl shows how humane she can be, how she exchanges lives with other people, and what she did to find herself and help others find themselves as well. Stargirl becomes friends with a 5-year old girl named Dootsie who thinks she can be invusible when she shuts her eyes. Dootsie shows how much a child can offer. She shows Stargirl the world how a 5-year old sees it. Through Dootsie's character, Stargirl realizes how selfish adults can be and how willing children are. Dootsie befriends everyone, talks to everyone, and appreciates almost everything. Dootsie and Stargirl continues to share experiences together and share the world with anyone as the story progresses. Next, Stragirl befriends with a tomboyish girl named Alvina who she helped with her preteenage issues. Stargirl made her realize that way pass her awkward stage, she is still beautiful and that she needs to come out of her shell so she can get the most out of life. Stargirl becomes fond of a boy named Perry. Perry acts like he own the world, steals, and has disgusting habits. People didn't like him but Stargirl didn't judge him. She later on finds out that Perry is not that bad after all, She learns that Perry's mom has a new child so he steals so he won't burden her mother. Later on, Perry and Stargirl becomes close and Perry steals a part of Stargirl's heart. The most moving character in the book is an agoraphobic named Betty Lou. She never goes out of her house because of her phobia. Since she is confined inside her house, Stargirl and Dootsie visits her once in a while and brings her doughnuts. Betty Lou liked gardening and has a certain love for this flower. It is sad that Betty Lou appreciates the flower from her house window. Stargirl then invites her to her Solstice celebration wherein people would gather to witness the winter solstice which signifies a new beginning for everyone including Stargirl. She told about her experiences to Leo through her letter. The novel ends with Stargirl still struggling over the uncertainty of her past and future relationship with Leo. Archie, however, has brought Stargirl a letter from Leo, that simply states "YES," effectively answering Stargirl's question of "Will we ever meet again?", what she has been wondering since their separation. Thus, a year and a day after she began the letter, Stargirl concludes with happiness that she will live in the moment until Leo comes back into her life, and decides that she will send this letter on to Leo so that he can know her feelings.

I love this book because I always wondered about what's going on in Stargirl's head. This book showed that Stargirl is human like all of us. She gets hurt, she longs for someone, she falls in love again, and hopes for her true love. Love, Stargirl contains all of Stargirl's feelings towards Leo that is yet to be discovered. Love, Stargirl shows that things can get better and that there is always a new day for everyone. This book tells the reader that there is always hope, that it is never too late to start anew, give thanks, and appreciate the world around you. Appreciation played a key role in this book. The writer himself paid the much appreciation to the people who made the book possible. In the beginning it says, "Much thanks to Alveena for lending me her name and my wife for lending me her life." Love, Stargirl is a great book to follow Stargirl.