To Know True Love Is To Know Utter Heartbreak
Book Review of Fading Stars by Marisa Kazwey
Published: August 20th, 2024
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (4.5 stars)
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Young Adult (YA), Romance
Disclaimer: Thank you, Marisa Kazwey, for sending me this book. All thoughts and opinions are 100% honest and my own.
CW/TW: Sexual assault, self-harm, mental health struggles, medical struggles, bullying, suicidal thoughts & ideation, suicide, gun violence, school shooting/mass shooting, violence, toxic relationship, grief, murder, blood, fire injury.
Introducing Our Star Gazers
Neveah loves the stars. Her Grandma inspired this passion and Neveah wants to share it with how ever she can. But how?
An astronomy club at school.
Every school club needs a minimum of four students to sign up. Neveah only has her best friend Fred and herself. But when Neveah hears news of a new student who already loves astronomy, she heads straight for Sol, signing her up for the club.
They only need 1 more. And then she sees him. The moon.
Capturing The Complex Teenage Experience
Marisa does a fantastic job of creating full characters that have lots going on in their lives. To capture the many complex relationships and emotions of teenagers is a difficult task. But it’s those characters in Fading Stars that drive the book. You care about them, you want to see them succeed, you laugh with them and you cry with them. And trust me you’ll be doing both.
I enjoyed that many characters were too caught up in their own lives to fully know what was happening with other. It made me think, ‘how well do you truly know what your friends are going through?’ I definitely think this applies to everyone (life gets busy) but especially to teenagers – they tend to think the world revolves around them.
Friendship and Health
Another favourite aspect of mine was the dynamic between Neveah and Yohan when dealing with their own and each others mental health/physical health struggles. They learn what the other needs, how they can best support each other and they do their best for one another.
Slow and Steady
Fading Stars is a slow paced book, which makes sense for the content. It’s a coming of age story, where our character build friendships and experience difficulties, that takes time and it’s all on the page. I tend to prefer medium-to-fast paced books, however, to do so here would have been a disservice to the story and also the reader.
Fav Quotes
“He kinda looked like… He kinda looked like the moon. Shattered and cast down the heavens.”
“I didn’t know how to strike up a conversation with the human equivalent of a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, but I decided to take a shot.”
“How do you remember who you were before something that defines you is gone?”
“The lines blurred – where did her brokenness end and my desperate need to mend it begin?”
Final Thoughts
Fading Stars was an incredibly beautiful story that made me feel so many emotions, especially warm hearted love and tragic heartbreak. I will be reading more from Marisa Kazwey.
Give this book a read if you enjoyed the books/movies ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ or ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’.
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