Love, Stargirl

Stargirl begins a new chapter in her life following her rollercoaster romance with Leo and her painful high school experience in Stargirl. In these opening entries, Stargirl reveals that she is struggling with emotional loss and the loss of her identity, themes that inform the story. While many aspects of Stargirl’s personality remain the same as in the previous novel, Stargirl’s experiences in Mica have resulted in new emotions that she now struggles to understand and master. Stargirl is sad and lonely. Her growing connection to other isolated individuals in her new town slowly helps Stargirl return to her true self.

Notably, Stargirl is narrated from Leo’s first-person point of view. In the novel, Stargirl was a magical enigma, almost a symbol of altruism, joy, and self-enlightenment. Readers see Stargirl from Leo’s perspective and are not privy to Stargirl’s internal dialogue. The opposite is true in Love, Stargirl. Stargirl’s letter, essentially a diary written in a first-person, conversational style, reveals Stargirl’s thoughts and feelings.

Though still outwardly positive with others, Stargirl is emotionally wounded. In the dated entries, she privately reveals her negative thoughts and self-doubt. She writes, “I feel rotten and I don’t know how to feel better” (13). While her melodramatic observations of sad anniversaries and dramatic comparisons are self-pitying and frequently maudlin, that makes them no less painful to Stargirl. She feels like she has lost herself, saying, “I’m not me anymore” (40).

Instead of looking forward, however, Stargirl dwells on many people, symbolic objects, and incidents from her past in Arizona. She cherishes her Loyal Order of the Stone Bone necklace which reminds her of Archie and the continuation of life. The silver earrings Dootsie cheerfully tosses into the sewer symbolize Stargirl’s altruistic dream of running a magical lunch truck. Stargirl clings to these bittersweet memories, revealing that she is, to an extent, living in the past and hoping for Leo’s return.

Stargirl fixates on her history with Leo, but her feelings about him are conflicted. She wants to believe that Leo and she are soulmates. Leo, however, found Stargirl’s free-spirited nonconformity threatening to his social identity, and ultimately chose the approval of his high school classmates over his love for Stargirl. Now, Stargirl wonders what she did wrong to “scare [him] off” (13). But she also has some bitterness and recognizes that Leo treated her badly. Her list of things she dislikes about Leo includes “You dumped me” and “You chose Them over Me” (41). Stargirl blames her present unhappiness on Leo: He is emptying her happy wagon. Stargirl’s letters reveal that her self-confidence and extroverted positivity are diminished.

Writing these entries allows Stargirl to express and work through her emotional issues. While she continues to mentally hold onto Leo, she recognizes her self-absorption. Writing to herself as her mundane persona, Susan, Stargirl realizes that she is fixated on the past, and that others have suffered more than she. This awareness helps push Stargirl into the present. When Dootsie literally takes the physical tokens that represent Stargirl’s memories and gives them away, Stargirl regains a sense of self and control of her future. Instead of self-absorption, Stargirl chooses selflessness. Dootsie’s example helps Stargirl reach out to the eccentric individuals in town who are also feeling sad and isolated. She again commits the random acts of kindness that were her trademarks in the first novel.