Random Things Tours: Falling Star by Michele Kwasniewski

 

I don´t have (yet) a teenager at home, but I am an avid reader of Young Adult literature, long before having a child. After all, once you understand where the new generation is heading to, what interests the adults in the making, you can also figure out where the society is heading to. It is important to understand and seize the right society patterns and books with young characters addressed to young characters are helpful in this respect. It´s a kind of literary voyeurism, very important though from the point of view of the history of mentalities.

Falling Star by Michele Kwasniewski, the third and last in the series featuring teenage extraordinaire Dani Truehart develops a moderately paced chain of events around the troubled life of a teenage star. 16-year old, a famous ultra-rich influencer and online star, Dani´s present and future life is brought to pieces as she found herself unconscious with a gravely hit cyclist besides her on the road. She drove drunk and apparently hit him. A scandal that brings back her dramatic life until now, being forced to react and be what other people expect from her.

I´ve found the pace of the book perfect for allowing reflection and featuring personal details probably familiar to those who followed the series from the very beginning. However, if you haven´t read all of them, like me, there is still plenty to understand about the character and her life journey. 

Dani, altough a very successful young lady, she may be the victim of the curse of being too gifted. A child without childhood, forced into adulthood by the requests of the market, the tragical episode she experienced and also created herself may be her passport to freedom, to a better, less eventful yet authentic life.

I liked the insights into startdom - which sound so authentic with all the details from the world of film and entertainment - and the focus on Dani´s feelings and everyday struggle. Nowadays, it´s not too hard - with a bit of talent and the right tools - to become famous, but it doesn´t stop with the ´likes´ and overwhelming ´live´ attendance. It is a trap that may steal your life in the very end.

Falling Star - and the rest of the series that I can´t wait to read in the near future as well - is a recommended book for both young adults and their parents. It helps maybe to avoid too much unhappiness and responsibilities at a young age, and for the parents, how to allow their children, no matter how special they are, to be themselves, no matter what profit lurks at the other end of the camera.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own