Book Review

#Starstruck by Sariah Wilson

I was so, so excited to read #Starstruck by Sariah Wilson. The premise of a fan interacting with her favorite movie star on Twitter, and that interaction subsequently leading to a romance, is all of my catnips. I love private lives vs public selves stories.

Unfortunately this book suffers from underdeveloped heroine, an offensive remark about homosexuality, a very misleading message about being sexually active and a poor understanding of feminism. The book pissed me off.

Rant ahead. Gird your loins.

Here’s the premise:

Zoe Miller is a college senior and a superfan of movie-star Chase Covington (who I think was loosely based on Chris Evans). Zoe and her best friend and roommate Lexi have been fans of Chase’s for years (think middle school), and their membership into the Chase Covington fandom (dubbed the Chasers) is something they’ve bonded over. One day, Chase sends out a tweet asking his fans how they liked his latest film. Zoe replies, honestly, that it wasn’t his best work and Chase replies.

At first Zoe thinks this is just a fluke and that she’s talking to Chase’s publicist or assistant, but the tweets keep coming. He follows her. The tweets get flirty. Then Lexi manages to score them roles as extras in Chase’s latest film where Chase meets Zoe in person, and romance ensues. At first Zoe has a hard time believing Chase really has feelings for her because she ascribes to the “poor little nobody” trope popular among some contemporary heroines. Zoe doesn’t think she’s especially interesting or pretty, and when she tells Chase she intends to stay celibate until marriage she’s willing to bet he’ll run away, just like the guys she’s dated before.

But Chase has surprising depth. He’s a recovering alcoholic and a former child star. He respects Zoe’s convictions. Of course when you add his unpredictable public life to the mix, it creates drama for them, especially when his hot female-costar (read stereotyped “other woman”) makes a very public play for him.

Most of that sounds great. Most of that is Elyse-bait. Sadly the premise is the only good thing about this book.

First of all, Zoe suffers from a severe lack of character development. I finished the book and found that, aside from her love of trivia and Jeopardy, I couldn’t really tell you anything about Zoe. I couldn’t picture her in my head. She seems to exist as a cutout that the reader can insert themselves into. She’s never described physically beyond a reference to hair and eye color, and even though the book is from her point of view, most of her thoughts revolve around feeling awkward in every situation. It was very Bella Swan.

Zoe is defined almost solely by her relationships to other people. She helps her mother raise her younger sisters. She’s Lexi’s best friend and considers herself the “smart one” in a friendship with the “hot one. ” She has an internship with a foundation for oceanic preservation. My understanding of Zoe as a character felt a lot like reading her CV: I’m being told things about Zoe that should give a hint to her personality, but that personality never shows up in the text. It’s a lot of tell and no show. If forced to describe Zoe, I’d say she’s average looking and an introvert. I can’t come up with much beyond that.

Also there seems to be some Cinderella-ish implications that Zoe’s value is derived from what she does for others. She thanklessly cares for her younger siblings and supports Lexi even when Lexi isn’t that great to her. It’s a trope I’d be happy to see die, frankly. I’d like to know who Zoe is as a person, not what she can do for the people around her.

For the most part Zoe is passive: she just goes where people tell her to and does what they ask of her. She babysits. She follows Lexi to radio studios and movie sets. She goes to class. There’s almost no character development past that point. She seems almost totally devoid of personality or passion or interest. What does she do when she’s not in class? Babysitting? Following Lexi around? What (aside from Chase) makes her giddy with joy? What makes her laugh? I couldn’t answer any of these questions once I’d finished the book, and it left me feeling like Zoe was almost lifeless. She’s an insert-self-here automaton.

The other thing that bothered me was that Zoe doesn’t tell Lexi about her relationship with Chase until the very end of the book. Lexi knows Zoe is dating, but Zoe lets her believe that she’s dating a guy from her internship. And here’s the thing: Zoe knows that keeping this information from Lexi will hurt her, but she does it anyway.

Given the fact that being part of the Chase Covington fandom is a huge part of Lexi and Zoe’s friendship, keeping the information that she knows Chase personally and is dating him from Lexi feels especially cruel. Zoe justifies this by saying she wants their relationship to remain private, just theirs for awhile, but that becomes weak justification for hurting someone who is supposed to be her closest friend by sustaining that secret.

Then we get into the stuff that is at best inaccurate and at worst offensive.

First of all, this scene. Zoe has been dating Chase, but is concerned that he hasn’t kissed her yet. She turns to Lexi for advice:

I drank the milk right out of the bowl and then put my dishes in the sink. “What does it mean when the guy you’re dating hasn’t tried to kiss you yet?”

“Gay.”

“Just because that happened to you once–”

“Eleven times,” she corrected, applying the polish in short, careful strokes.

“Seriously? Eleven times? Okay, just because that’s happened to you eleven times doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening here. And maybe you should stop dating fellow theater majors.”

Click to see my reaction:

Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec is enraged.

Wow. Woooowww. What a pile of reductive stereotyping. First of all, not all male theater majors are gay and not all gay men are into theater. And a dude might have a plethora of reasons for being uncomfortable with physical contact that have nothing to do with homosexuality.

This section is made even more baffling because Zoe has decided to remain celibate until marriage and frequently bemoans how society (especially the male part of it) judge her for it. Yet she’s doing the exact same thing here: making the same shitty (bigoted) assumptions that she despises being the victim of.

And Zoe’s explanation of her decision to remain celibate is also a hot mess of problems. Zoe can choose to remain celibate for any reason she wants; that’s her right. Unfortunately in explaining that choice she also perpetuates a lot of bad information about sex. In this scene Zoe is explaining to Chase why celibacy is important to her:

“There are a lot of reasons. At first it was religious. What my grandparents taught me. Then when I was old enough to realize how young my mom was when she had me, I decided I wanted to the be opposite of her. And then my best friend had a pregnancy scare when were sixteen. I didn’t want to be a mother at sixteen.”

“I totally get that. I didn’t want to be a mother at sixteen either.” [Chase said]

I smiled a little. “I’m not really a casual person. I realized it would never not be a big deal to me. And in additional to keeping me not pregnant, it’s also made me not diseased. My favorite teacher in high school contracted an STD without knowing it as a teen. It made her sterile, and she wanted a baby more than anything. It was so unbelievably sad.”

“It. Made. Me. Not. Diseased.”

Click to see my reaction

Mary Steenburgen says what the fucking fuck

Add to this a scene where Lexi has a pregnancy scare because she takes antibiotics while on birth control and doesn’t know it decreases the effectiveness of the pill.

While Lexi is melting down, Zoe helpfully slut shames her:

“Lexi, how many times do I have to tell you that the only one hundred percent effective form of birth control is having my social skills?”

I am a proponent of comprehensive sexual education, education that would have taught Lexi that antibiotics reduce the effectiveness of the pill (also her prescribing doctor didn’t tell her that? The pharmacist? The fucking label on the bottle of pills?).

Zoe’s reasons for remaining celibate are her own and she doesn’t need to justify them to anyone, but to suggest that having sex outside of marriage leads to pregnancy or STD infection is inaccurate. It’s analogous to saying that the only way to avoid food poisoning is to not eat food. I’m planning on having chicken enchiladas tonight but because I know how to safely prepare that chicken, the odds of me getting Salmonella are almost non-existent. Framing pregnancy and disease as the consequences of consensual sex is terribly inaccurate and shaming, to say nothing of Zoe’s condescension. Zoe slut shames her friend and her teacher, and I’m willing to bet the situations she disparages so casually could have been avoided by comprehensive sexual education and easy access to condoms.

So while I have no issue with Zoe being celibate for any reason, I do take issue with her shaming other women and suggesting that their situations were the result of having sex rather than understanding how to safely have sex.

Zoe doesn’t also acknowledge that it’s possible to have an unwanted pregnancy or get a STD while married. Marriage doesn’t necessarily mean both parties want to have children, and even in a monogamous relationship, one partner can come to the marriage with a STD they may not know they have. In Zoe’s mind, celibacy until marriage is the safeguard for all the terrible consequences she fears.

And if that wasn’t enough, we get Zoe’s take on feminism. Which is not great. In the beginning of the book she drags herself to her Women’s Studies class:

This [Women’s Studies] was a required class I had kept putting off and probably should have taken while I was an underclassman. Er, underclasswoman. But I forgot, and when I met with my counselor to go over my graduation requirements, she pointed out that I hadn’t taken it yet. Which made me the only senior in a room composed of rabid, men-hating freshmen. Freshwomen. Who would probably make women’s studies their major. Our section was small, and I often felt bad for the three guys in the class who never, ever spoke. They probably feared for their lives.

Later:

I was well aware of the fact that some second-and third-wave feminists advocated against celibacy, which I found to be highly hypocritical.

Leia has a reaction to that:

Princess Leia is not having this shit.

Zoe. Zoe, you haven’t done the reading.

Feminism is a complicated thing. It’s an ideology and a social movement that means different things to different people. It’s shifted and changed over time. It’s changing right now. I don’t have enough Word Press or the skills to comprehensively define it.

However, describing feminists as man-hating or rabid is pretty much planting your feet in the sand and declaring feminism bad. It’s intentionally provocative. And it’s kind of a weird thing to read in a romance novel–a genre largely written by woman for women about exercising agency in choosing a partner, and demanding that a romantic relationship be equitable and fulfilling for both parties.

My understanding of feminism is that it advocates for an environment wherein Zoe can choose not to have sex and be free from the social pressures and judgements she faces in this book. It advocates for a safe place for all women to determine individually how they choose to exercise their sexuality. Do /did some feminists advocate against celibacy? Sure. And some for it. But feminism is much larger than what “some” people think, and unfortunately, much like Zoe’s concept of the safeguarding properties of marriage and celibacy, her understanding of feminism is poorly informed.

The digs keep coming. Here Zoe and Lexi discuss Zoe’s upcoming date:

“According to my women’s studies class, I’m not supposed to get dressed up to please a man. Where’s your feminism?”

“You mean that thing that murdered romance?” [Lexi] retorted.

Who the fuck is teaching this class? The same person filling Lexi’s amoxicillin?

Click for my question:

Kaitlin Olsen says WTF

Zoe, you can dress however you like for whatever reason you like, and you should feel safe and empowered in that choice.

At the end of the book, when Zoe and Chase are in their black moment and have split, the people in her Women’s Studies class support her, and Zoe thinks she has a feminist awakening:

“This is feminism,” I told my professor. “A sisterhood of women who stand up for one another, support one another, and know they’re stronger together.”

Sort of. But feminism isn’t just a bunch of people making you feel better about your breakup. That’s friendship. Feminism also isn’t other women doing what Zoe thinks they should be doing (supporting her in her moment of sadness). What about supporting each person’s right to make decisions that are right for them, without shaming, judging, or rejecting them for those choices? I don’t think Zoe would be waving the banner of feminism if a classmate needed support and help with a sexual problem. She’d tell them they ought to have been celibate and awkward like her.

Honestly Zoe was so misinformed by so many things in this book, that it was almost painful to read. And if you take out the misinformation on sex and feminism, you still have a flat, offensive main character who’s a shitty friend. Overall #Starstruck was a major dud.

This book is available from:
  • Available at Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!

#Starstruck by Sariah Wilson

View Book Info Page

Add Your Comment →

  1. rachel says:

    Universities in the state of Florida require something called an “x” (Cross Cultural Studies)and “y” (Diversity in Western Experience) class. There was a range of classes you could take to fulfill the requirements and sometimes one class met both criteria. For instance, I took Women in Lit (which I think met both, but it was 100 years ago so my memory could be off), but I also took Cultural Anthropology (which I think met the x). Anyhow, yes social science courses are required (I just double checked and they are still required), but you can pick the specific one you want.

  2. greennily says:

    God, I hate romance novels with poor understanding of feminism! It feels like betrayal 🙁

  3. Rachael says:

    I think it’s odd that she said she believed in “celibacy” until marriage. “Abstinence” makes more sense; “celibacy” typically means not having sex or getting married, ever. It also sounds old-fashioned and kind of Catholic.

  4. Dr. Lena says:

    Thank you for this review. I’m at least 75% of the way through this thinnly disguised propaganda and am thinking about just walking away from it for all the reasons you discuss.

    I’m so put off by the toxic messages that I searched for reviews hoping other people had similar “what the actual…?” reactions.

    I’m not one for book banning or burning, so I hope this one burns out of circulation for its own lack of plot, character development, genuine human experience, overt materialism, and toxic masculinity and feminitity.

    I like to bake cookies, help people, stay free of STDs and unplanned pregnancies, too. My version of that involves healthy sexual practices, a PhD in psychology, and a tenure track university professorship. My husband lovingly and deferentially refers to me as his “Dr. Wife.” That’s third wave feminism for you: my body, my mind, my life, my choices.

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

↑ Back to Top