Review:

What I Liked:


Social Anxiety Rep. I connected so much with Kiko's struggles with social anxiety. I don't have it at the same level but just like her I struggle being in large groups with strangers and I have a hard time functioning. Just like Kiko, I'm always questioning ever interaction I have with everyone and letting it bother me. Bowman did an amazing job showing what social anxiety is like and how it is looked down upon.


Characters. The novel mainly follows Kiko as she deals with her narcissistic mother and trying to feel safe in her own home. Also, Bowman did a great job developing the side characters, Kiko's brothers and her love interest Jamie.


Writing Style. I adored Bownman's prose, it was beautiful and I flew through this novel. I always enjoy it when I find prose so good that I don't want to stop reading a book. I can't believe it took me this long to finally read this amazing debut from 2017. I will be picking up her second novel soon!


I recommend checking out this beautifully written and hard-hitting YA contemporary.


Rating:


5 Stars Out of 5 Stars

Her writing style just doesn't mesh with what I like to read. I have read raving reviews from some of my closest friends about her writing. I wish I could give better feedback, but I really just didn't enjoy the tone or style. I thought characterization and plot were perfectly fine. There was just a barrier to really getting into this book and meshing with the characters. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was. I do think Bowman is a powerful and much needed voice in the YA community. Her books tackle huge issues that aren't talked about, especially with a diverse cast. Although her writing isn't for me, I hope we get to see more of her in the future so that teens can see their issues and their cultures on page.

Emotionally complex. Given the early chapters we might expect a focus on sexual abuse, but really the heart of this story is the emotionally destructive mother. Really, the ways in which all the relationships in a family can be broken. Some of it doesn't make a lot of sense and some plot elements happen a bit too easily.

This is a stirring book about a dysfunctional family and one that all teens should read if they feel disconnected to a parent

Oh wow, this book punched me in the emotions and kept beating me until the last page. I think this book is not only needed but something that will help a lot of people. The one thing that I did not like though was the language that was used for the character that had mental health issues. But, considering the things that happened in this story it was realistic, not pleasant or something that I was expecting, but again was realistic. I don't want to give too much away because I really think that everyone should read this book to find your own answers and opinions.

Oh my gosh, I was beyond excited to be able to request this one and was beyond thrilled when I was accepted. I've been eyeing that gorgeous cover for awhile now! I was quite intrigued as the cover is a jellyfish, but the book is called starfish and nothing in the description seemed to match either images.
I really really loved this story. The social anxiety representation was SPOT on!
I absolutely love that the main character was Asian. I am not Asian myself, but one of my closest friends are and I rarely ever see their culture represented in a book so that made me very happy. Plus, I love reading and learning about other cultures as well!
This book was incredibly well written and I can't wait to reach more by the author

When I first requested Akemi Dawn Bowman’s novel, Starfish, I didn’t really know much about it other than the fact that it had one of the most gorgeous book covers I’ve ever seen. I was completely unprepared for the emotional punch this book would pack. Covering a wide spectrum of heavy subjects such as sexual and emotional abuse as well as suicide, Starfish is not an easy read by any means, but ultimately it is a powerful story about discovering who you really are and what you want out of life.

Starfish follows the story of Kiko Himura, a high school senior who suffers from social anxiety and therefore often has trouble expressing herself and fitting in. Kiko, however, is also a gifted artist who uses her art to say what she can’t seem to say with words. One of Kiko’s biggest dreams is to get into the prestigious Prism art school. She feels like once she gets away from home and can throw herself into her art, her real life can finally begin.

Kiko is also half Japanese and her parents are divorced. She lives with her mother, who is blond haired, blue eyed and is obsessed with her appearance. She also constantly makes Kiko feel unattractive and implies that she would be more attractive if she were not of Asian descent. Her mother is also a narcissist and so whenever Kiko tries to talk to her, she always manages to twist the topic around and make it about herself. On top of that, instead of supporting Kiko in what she is passionate about, Kiko’s mom belittles her art and can’t be bothered to attend Kiko’s art shows at school.
Then, as if Kiko’s mom isn’t bad enough, Kiko’s abusive uncle moves in with them. After an incident that took place the last time he lived in their house when Kiko woke up and found him in her bedroom, Kiko now refuses to live in the same house as him. She tells her mother as much, but her mom ignores her and tells her she is being overly dramatic about what happened.

Kiko longs for her mother to believe her and support her and let her know that she cares, but it just feels like that’s never going to happen. She knows she needs to get away from the toxic environment that she is living in, but her dreams are shattered when she receives a rejection notice from Prism. Having applied to no other schools, Kiko doesn’t have a Plan B. How will she recover from this unexpected rejection? Will she ever get the support and affection that she so craves from her mother or does Plan B involve starting over alone somewhere new? What happens next for Kiko?

LIKES

I fell in love with Kiko right away. As someone who also tends to get very anxious in social situations, I felt an immediate connection to Kiko as I watched her struggle to interact both at school and at parties. The author did a wonderful job in those scenes of portraying social anxiety and how truly crippling it can be.

Kiko was also a favorite of mine because she’s such a sympathetic character. In addition to her social anxiety issues, her home life is just awful. It’s hard enough being a child of divorced parents, but it’s especially hard if you feel like the parent you’re living with doesn’t seem to care about you and either ignores you or criticizes you every time they see you. I absolutely loathed Kiko’s mother and the way she treated Kiko. At the same time though, I completely understood why Kiko kept trying to connect with her and kept trying to show her the art she was working on. It’s completely natural for a child to want their parent’s approval and it was heartbreaking to watch Kiko keep getting rejected every time she tried. I just wanted to give her a big hug and tell her she deserved better because it was obviously killing Kiko’s sense of self-worth.

Even though Kiko’s mom had no interest in Kiko’s artwork, I sure did. Some of my favorite scenes in Starfish were where we got to see Kiko immerse herself in her art. Watching her completely at ease with herself because she’s in her element and then reading the author’s descriptions of what she was actually drawing and painting honestly made me wish the book was illustrated. The art work sounded so gorgeous and magical!
Aside from Kiko herself, some of the other elements of Starfish I really enjoyed were the overall themes. There is a huge focus on beauty, with a specific emphasis on the message that there is no set idea for what is considered beautiful. We’re all beautiful in our own unique way, and someone who is Asian is just as beautiful as someone who happens to be blond and blue-eyed. To go along with that truth about what is beautiful, there is also a huge emphasis on self-love. You should love yourself exactly as you are and not let anyone make you feel bad about yourself.

Along the lines of accepting that you’re beautiful just the way you are, Starfish can also be considered a powerful coming of age story. After she is rejected from the art school of her dreams, Kiko embarks on a journey of self-discovery to slowly but surely figure out who she really is, what she wants from life, and how she can stand on her own two feet regardless of whether or not she has her mother’s support and approval. It’s an often painful journey for Kiko, but in the end, it’s a beautiful one that is full of hope and promise.
One final element of the story that I liked was Kiko’s reunion with a long-lost friend from her childhood. There is a romantic element there and I liked the way the author handled the transition from friends to lovers. I also liked that the romance wasn’t just a way for Kiko to escape her home life, but that in a twist I really liked, it also presented Kiko with some unexpected opportunities and allowed her to make some empowering decisions about her future.

DISLIKES/ISSUES

Aside from my utter dislike of Kiko’s mother, I don’t really have anything for this section. And even though I completely disliked her, she was still an incredibly well drawn character and served an important purpose in Kiko’s story.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I think Starfish is going to be one of those books that I will continue to think about long after finishing the last page. As I mentioned earlier, it packs an emotional punch and Kiko’s journey is one that I think many readers will relate to on some level, whether it’s the feeling like you don’t belong, feeling like you’re not good enough, or dealing with a less than ideal home life. For this reason and because the writing and storytelling is top notch, I fully expect to see Starfish on many ‘Best of’ 2017 lists before the end of the year.

RATING: 4.5 STARS

I felt such a personal connection to Kiko, the main character. I'm not biracial, nor half-Japanese, but there was a whole lot about Kiko's life and personality that I related to so hard. It made the read that much more special to me, because it's not very often when I can say that a book is basically my life.

*Kiko is a middle child
*with two brothers
*she's shy and quiet
*awkward and has social anxiety
*parties make her super anxious, and she feels better when she's got friends like Jamie and Emery around
*feels weird for fangirling and showing her passion for things
*is a dreamer and a creative type
*doesn't like confrontation
*but wants so badly for people to see her feelings
*yet she's always scared those she loves will get angry or dislike her for feeling different from what they want
*but she's so courageous, and she learns how to demand better from people
*I'm going through a similar situation re: the relationship Kiko has with her Mom, but with a cousin of mine. I know starfish in my life too, and it SUCKS.

So yeah, I ended up absolutely loving this book, and all I wanted while reading it was to give Kiko a big hug and tell her that she deserved better from many people in her life. I loved that this book didn't tie everything into a neat little bow (especially with her mental health) and that it had so much good in it, especially the relationships Kiko makes with others. Just absolutely WONDERFUL.

Rating: 4.5 Paw Prints!

Starfish is honest, brutal, and so fricken beautiful.

Kiko is a half-Japanese/half-white seventeen-year-old living in Midwest suburbia. I can't even find the right words to truly express how much I wish I had this book as a teenager, and how I believe Starfish will help so many teens, especially Asian-Americans, right now. I'm half-Filipino/half-Mexican and I grew up in Midwest suburbia - most of my classmates were white and it was brutal growing up wishing I had blonde hair and blue eyes. It took me over 20 years before I embraced my heritage and reading Kiko's story completely broke me because I was where she was.

She's struggling with her self-esteem, identity, and so much more (no spoilers). There are so many factors that go beyond her struggles like her relationships with her friend(s) and especially her family. Everything about Kiko's life was relatable because all of our struggles do stem from different aspects of our lives. School, work, friendships, family - everything. And that's what we get from Kiko's story. We dig into all of her issues with everything in her life and how they have shaped who she is and where she ends up.

You'll feel Kiko's loneliness but you'll also feel her hope. I cried on more than one occasion while reading because she's such a real character that you instantly feel connected to her. You want her to find her strength at the end of the story as if she was you.

All of the characters bring something to the story - you'll love some and you'll hate others. Jamie + the romance throughout the story was the icing on the cake. It was sweet, romantic, and reminded me of falling in love for the first time. <3

I can't believe this is a debut because Akemi Dawn Bowman's writing is stunning. She pulls at your heartstrings but fills you up with so much hope. I'm looking forward to all of her future work!
If you're looking for a great diverse, coming-of-age story then I can't recommend Starfish enough. It's absolutely beautiful and everyone needs to read it.

I’m the type of reader that has a tendency to become really attached to characters, especially the protagonist that we follow throughout the story. They either become a character who I can see myself being friends with, or a character who I can relate to in some way. With Kiko Himura, the protagonist in Starfish, it was different because I didn’t only see one or the other. This time… I saw me. And coming to that realization was equal parts terrifying and wondrous.

I understood and identified with Kiko on such a deep and emotional level that I found it to be such a struggle to read the first half of the book because that is when we are first shown the unhealthy and destructive home-life Kiko and her siblings live in. It was awful, heartbreaking, and rage-inducing to see her mother be so selfish, narcissistic, and delusional to the point where it was physically draining for her own children to be anywhere near her. Kiko has social anxiety – something I can definitely relate to but never really had a name for until reading this book. There were moments in the book where I wanted to reassure Kiko that everything would be okay and that all she needed to do was take a chance, but I also acknowledged how scary taking that leap can be. I’ve always been the quiet type growing up, and didn’t try breaking out of my shell until college, but I also know that despite going through that, I still have some degree of social anxiety and that is something that is just part of who I am. Like Kiko, I’ve had to learn – and am still trying to everyday – to accept and see the beauty in myself, quirks and all.

I found myself feeling so proud and excited for Kiko as she explored California and discovered more about her Asian culture – a significant part of herself that she had missed out on growing up because of her terrible mother. Maybe because it’s so appalling for me to fully grasp, but I could not understand how her mother could have married and had three children with Kiko’s Asian father, and still be so racist towards anything Asian (even something as simple as anime, for heaven’s sake!), to the point where it distorted her perception of beauty. To Kiko’s mother, there was only one form of beauty: skinny, blonde, and blue-eyed, and anything differing from that was a flaw. I am not Japanese, nor am I half of anything, but I am a Filipino Asian American who grew up in California, so seeing Kiko finally break free from her racist and toxic home town – and even worst mother – was such a relief. It was beautiful seeing Kiko discover, not only her Asian culture, but also an inner strength and courage she never knew was there.

The whole best-friends-turned-lovers arc is something I’m always wary about in books because I don’t believe in it, but the romance between Kiko and Jamie was so sweet and beautifully developed. It did not feel like insta-love at all. On the contrary, Kiko and Jamie actually go through a lot of growth throughout their friends-to-more-than-friends relationship and it was so lovely to see that. Jamie is sweet, charming, understanding, and, like Kiko, has an artistic eye. Except while she utilizes pencils and paints to create images, Jamie captures them with his camera. He and Kiko hadn’t seen each other since they were children so the awkward reunion period was understandable; they were different people now, more grown up and have gone through so many things in their short lives, Kiko especially. I liked how Jamie did not immediately know about Kiko’s social anxiety and had to gradually learn to be more patient and understanding with her.

Poignant, absolutely beautiful, and filled to the brim with raw emotions, Starfish will slowly shatter your heart then put it back together again; this time more whole, filled with an unyielding light, and beating stronger than ever before. A truly inspirational and empowering read about family, love, and self-discovery that will stay with me forever.

I can see how this book would appeal to teens, especially mixed-race teens who are struggling with being different in a homogeneous community. However, I didn't like a lot of the ableist language used, and the author never explicitly states that what happens with Kiko at the party is ALSO sexual assault. She keeps calling it her messed up first kiss--no.

I read my first review on this book and knew immediately it was one I had to read. It was sad, beautiful, and so achingly real. I've often wondered how families of different cultures handled sharing these differences with their children. In this case, not well at all.
Kiko's mom was a real piece of work and so, so familiar. Though the author never specifically said she was bipolar, from personal experience, I assumed so. I grew up with a sister who is dead on this starfish. This is such an apt description for a bipolar individual and so much better than "bat-shit crazy" (my description for her for the last 40+ years).
Unfortunately, until about 10 years ago, I wasn't very familiar with this condition. Also unfortunately, my granddaughter is barely surviving growing up in similar circumstances. A Mom that is always criticizing her, telling her that she is useless, ugly and not worth the air she breathes. A Mom that keeps her isolated so that she doesn't have friends nor develop life skills. She "home schools" her. This is her way of having total control and being answerable to no one.
For the most part, as grandparents, your hands are tied. Offering emotional support and simply being there for them is about the sum total of help that you can give. If you attempt to run interference then you get cut totally out of their life. Unless the bipolar parent is physically abusive, you can do little. In most cases, the bipolar individual presents a totally different face to outsiders. Outsiders typically think you are overreacting.
This book shows how this emotionally cripples the children caught in the middle of the vicious cycle where everything revolves around the starfish. It's me! me! me! 24/7. Anxiety and fear becomes a way of life for these children.
A copy of this book will be in my personal library so that when my granddaughter is a couple of years older, I can let her read it to see that there is a possibility of light at the end of the road.

This novel means so much to me. I had heard about it on social media, but at the same time I avoided all information on what this was about somehow thinking this was a fantasy novel along the way, but when I started reading and I got this heartfelt, emotional, and personal read I was floored. This book felt like it was speaking to me. Like it was written for me to open my eyes and to start to feel just that little bit more whole. Starfish is an absolutely gorgeous novel that is now my favorite read of 2017!

Kiko is an artist with social anxiety. However she is so much more then that. Within these pages she took steps forward and then some steps back and she lived and she breathed and thought deeply about life and what she wants for herself, and how she wants to see life. Kiko was so achingly human and she was so real you almost felt like you could touch her soul.

What hit me most was Kiko’s mother. A mother like my Grandmother who had adopted me when I was a baby. It is uncanny how much the words that Kiko’s mother said mirrored the words my own grandmother has told me so many times before. It is insane to think that the author could have captured the essence of the woman who had caused me so much pain in the pages of this story without even knowing it. It made me feel this story in my bones in a way that I have never felt a story before. It filled me with anger when the mother in this book said certain things and it filled me with my own brewing of things I always wanted to say to my own grandmother that were truths never gone to light. However, I have never felt such peace at the end of a story as this one and I never felt such healing, because this is a story for those who know what it is like to live with a starfish and who know that emotional abuse can cause just as many scars though they may always go unseen.

This book is like poetry to me, especially the descriptions of paintings Kiko creates at the end of each chapter. Those descriptions often gave me goosebumps. They showed most of all how Kiko felt on the inside and I don’t know how she made every emotion good or bad turn into something beautiful.

This book is about family and it is about discovering that beauty has more then one definition. It is about dreaming and chasing those dreams and being who you are unapologetically no matter what. This book is so many amazing things and by the end as Kiko is transformed so are you.

But some people are just starfish - they need everyone to fill the roles that they assign.

Kiko's story is so tough to read at points - not only due to her childhood trauma, but also due to her struggles as a biracial young woman in a rural town. Her father is Japanese and her mother is white, and her mother has spent Kiko's entire life shaming her half-Asian appearance, name, and culture.
She once told me she wished she had given me and my brothers more "traditional" names because she was "kind of over the Japanese thing." You know, because being Asian is a trend or something.

On top of growing up with a narcissistic mother who has essentially ruined any chance at self-esteem Kiko ever had, she is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and suffers from extreme social anxiety. As someone who has suffered from severe anxiety my entire life, Kiko's mental health struggles are portrayed in a way that I related so hard to.
Normal people don't need to prepare for social interactions. Normal people don't panic at the sight of strangers. Normal people don't want to cry because the plan they've processed in their head is suddenly not the plan that's going to happen.

While I will say that this book comes with serious trigger warnings for childhood sexual abuse, familiar abuse/neglect, and mental health illnesses, the story is simultaneously just as touching as it is heartbreaking. I spent the entire story rooting for Kiko because I wanted so badly to see her heal and move forward in life. Akemi drew such a beautiful story, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA contemporaries and is not going to be too upset by the aforementioned triggers.

While this book does also involve a romance subplot, I was pleased to find that it rarely felt like the forefront of the story; first and foremost, Starfish is the progression of an incredible young woman learning how to accept herself for the first time.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

TW: emotional abuse by a parent, childhood sexual abuse, anxiety/panic attacks, racism.

I have to admit, reading some of this book was hard work because of how closely Kiko and her mother's relationship mirrors that one I had growing up. Being belittled, even when that person doesn't realize it and especially when they do, makes it difficult to survive sometimes. I had some flashbacks when Kiko's mother was being narcissitic and petty, reminding me of the past. I will say that as painful as those moments were, and I'd caution those with emotional abuse in their past when reading Starfish, Akemi Dawn Bowman wrote them very authentically.

It's easy to see the affect that Kiko's mother's treatment of her has on her everyday life, particularly one moment when she's at a fair with Jamie, a childhood friend. He's a photography major who's practicing and, when she looks at a picture he takes of her that night, all she can see is the things "wrong" with her face: the shape of her nose, the shade of her hair, etc. She can't not pick herself apart, even thinking about how it's no wonder her mother has been telling her she's going through a "funky" stage. These moments hurt and strike home with each page how badly things have gone in Kiko's past and present.

The relationship that develops between Kiko and Jaime was a good one in that a) it didn't feel like insta-love and b) it didn't magically make Kiko's problems go away. There have been some mental illness books and movies that make it seem like falling in love will make everything better, but Kiko doesn't do that. She actually recognizes, when she's with Jamie and considering the future that she's be really dependent on him because of how he makes her feel and, while she believes she might love him, doesn't want their love to be based on him taking care of her. It's a hard choice for her to make, but she makes the decision to take care of herself first. There's a RuPaul quote that's perfect for this moment, I think:

If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?


Things aren't magically better at the end with Kiko's mother either and that was a powerful statement because things don't always get better. You can try and reach out, but there are people that just can't be helped. I really felt for Kiko when she kept trying to reach out to her mother, trying to get her to care about Kiko and her art, hoping that maybe this time will be different. Being able to break away from a toxic environment like that can be insanely hard, but she does it and starts moving forward.

I was happy for the epilogue wherein there was more closure than I was expecting. It gives a glimpse into the life that Kiko is creating on her own now. Learning to accept help, learning to love herself, and recognizing that doing all that doesn't mean that her anxiety, the pressure she feels to please others and say sorry, will go away and that's okay. It's a one day at a time thing and she's taking those steps.

A little slow to start, Starfish took my own self-confidence and rattled it around. Kiko has confidence issues and social anxiety that stem from a past trauma and an unloving, racist mother. So when she distances herself from her toxic home, she starts to find parts of herself in California, with the help of her childhood friend Jamie.

The romance subplot didn't draw me in (though usually I'm a sucker for friends to lovers romances) and any time there was romantic screen time, I felt like I just wanted to get a move on. I was mostly interested in Kiko's growth into a braver, more confident person.

The portrayal of anxiety was the best I've ever seen. I don't suffer from as intense social anxiety as Kiko, though I do have some milder form of social anxiety, but I know people whose anxiety is as bad as Kiko's. Bowman knew her stuff when she was portraying Kiko's anxiety and how people around her reacted to it, especially if those people didn't have anxiety themselves.

I loved watching Kiko grow as the story went on, and I resonated with a lot of her insecurities about beauty. I may never full understand how societal beauty standards affect girls of color, but as a fat girl myself, I've felt that pressure to look a certain way just to be seen as beautiful in a parent's eye. I've felt that hopelessness when I knew it wasn't something I could control and how my simply existing was a disappointment to some people.

I cried as Kiko made the realizations about herself and beauty and as she became this braver person because of her experiences. I couldn't put Starfish down and it changed my view on life.

Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying what she feels. With a mother that centers everything around herself and holds up traditionally pretty white girls as 'normal', it's no surprise that Kiko has never felt her round face and Asian features were 'pretty' or 'normal'. She's never really learned much about the Japanese side of her family either, since her mother never wanted it around, and her parents got divorced. Living in her small town has actually been kind of depressing.

Instead of the usual high school parties, Kiko loses herself in her art. She's been counting on getting into the art college of her dreams, Prism. When she gets a rejection letter, her world shatters.

When Kiko sees her old best friend and crush is back in town visiting, she makes a sudden decision to go back to California with him and look at art schools out there. She begins to figure out who she really is, instead of what others want her to be.

Starfish is Bowman's debut novel, and what a great debut! Starfish is a heartbreaking, beautiful work of art that hopefully means we'll be hearing much, much more from Bowman. This is a book you really shouldn't miss.

Wow. Just, wow. This book is everything. Is. Not has. Is. This book IS everything. This is the book I needed, well, let's just say twenty years ago, because that's a nice round number. Kiko Himura. Sigh. I want to hug her.

The writing is gorgeous. The imagery is insanely good. No matter where you're from, what you look like, how you're raised, I think most teenagers suffer the same range of insecurities--to vary degrees, of course. I think a lot of people suffer from the feeling that they're on the outside looking in, and I loved how well this book portrays that emotion.

I finished reading this around midnight and had to stop myself from barging into my daughter's room and waking her up so she could start reading RIGHT NOW.

All the feels. READ this book!

Warning: This story does have abuse, sexual assault, and a suicide attempt.

To be honest, I didn't expect to like this story but maybe that's one of the reasons I loved it.
The writing style is beautiful and unique. It follows an artists named Kiko on her slow but sure journey to discovering who she is and what she wants out of life. Everything from familial relationships, her re-connection with a childhood best friend, abuse, the racism Kiko experiences, and anxiety creates a stunning, and painful, story that is easy to relate to.

Akemi's ability to write a story that held me captive was surprising and I can't imagine not coming back to reread this Kiko's story. There's something about it that moves me and it was 100% unexpected. I don't want to spoil anything. So, I'll recommend the heck out of it.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster (Simon Pulse) for allowing me to read and review this book before release*

Rating: 4/5 stars

Starfish is a beautiful story about a girl named Kiko, who struggles with social anxiety and a self-centered mother. The diverse representation in this book is lovely and shows the grittiness of Kiko’s relationships. Her passion is for art and she follows this passion by going to California with her best friend Jamie, where she is able to explore herself and her artwork more deeply. This book focuses on issues of sexual abuse (trigger warning here!), mental health and how important it is to look after yourself aka self-care.

I had heard about this book online and I was excited when I was approved! Kiko’s character is extremely ‘real’ and I felt for her throughout the entire book. One of my favorite elements of this book are the author’s portrayal of mental health as well as the progress Kiko makes throughout the book, as evidenced by what she draws/paints. Addressing the first part, Kiko struggles with social anxiety and speaking up for herself, and what she really thinks, in order to save others from harm. She doesn’t ever want to hurt anyone’s feelings, even those of her truly horrible mother. The author utilizes her inner thoughts by writing what Kiko wants to say and what she actually says. To me, this shows the reality of mental illness in that many try to hide it and pretend that they are okay, instead of speaking what they truly think. This doesn’t just speak to her anxiety, though: it speaks to her personality and how she was brought up to be a quiet, complacent girl. At the end of each chapter, there is a sentence or two in italics that describes what Kiko creates artistically after that chapter. I found this to be interesting because it showed her character development through another medium rather than simply words and I was able to visually picture these creations. Kiko was a fantastic character and I truly could feel my heart breaking at points for her. I related a lot to the thoughts she had about herself and her self-confidence level, which brought the character close-to-home for me. I think Jamie, her best friend in the story, complemented her so well. He was the exact opposite of what she had been taught her entire life and he truly liked her for who she was, much to the surprise of Kiko. This book does not focus on romance, though, and I liked that about it because there were much larger issues that were being tackled in this story.

I really couldn’t stand Kiko’s mother. That’s not knocking this book at all: I have known people in my own life who acted just like her and thought that this element was important to include. It related completely to Kiko’s character arc and taught a strong moral lesson as well. Kiko’s mentor at art school mentions something about her mother being a ‘starfish’, which means that she is someone who always needs to be the center of attention, with the starfish’s legs pointing to the middle of that center. This helped me to understand the title of the book and also relate it to my recent experiences. It hurt a little to think about that because, like Kiko, it was hard for me to admit that someone I was close to didn’t care about me and only about themselves. I think this metaphor is something that is honestly going to stick with me for a long time and the dynamic between Kiko and her mother was heartbreaking. I think, though, it is worth pointing out that the rawness of this book is what appealed to me once I finished it and it quickly became one of my favorites.

I would recommend this book to those who struggle with social anxiety because it has a very realistic depiction and shows what can be said by family/friend support, and also what shouldn’t be said. This book shows what happens when you say the wrong thing but also when you say the right thing.