STARFISH REVIEW BY AKEMI DAWN BOWMAN |ART, ASIAN MC(!!) AND MAGICAL WRITING.

CAN I BOW ETERNALLY TO AKEMI DAWN BOWMAN?

OKAY KIKO IS THE MOST WONDERFUL PERSON.

I absolutely adore her, and literally want to befriend her right now. She’s every kind of ‘smol’ and just,,, needs a hug. She also has social anxiety, which was represented really well, and it wasn’t as though she needed to be “cured”. She’s got seamy horrible things going on. She grows so much in this book, and I literally find her journey so emotional. She’s half-Asian, half-white, and I just love it. I LOVE THE DIVERSITY!!

Things for Kiko are so though, and I actually HATE her mother with a BURNING PASSION AND I WANT TO STAB HER. She’s a self-centered bitch that is RACIST TO HER OWN CHILDREN and almost tries to make Kiko look like her, despite the fact that KIKO IS 1/2 JAPANESE 1/2 WHITE. I literally loathe that woman to the ends of the earth because she even tried—and succeeded—to take away Kiko’s heritage from her and deprived her of her culture which is SICKENING.

She made Kiko feel so awful and she made Kiko hate herself, and think that she was less than everyone so that she could feel good and that is NOT being a mother. Kiko feels the need for her mother’s approval, which I get, but her mother was absolute RUBBISH that needs to actually live in the bin, because the only person that her mother approves of is herself. I literally hated her from the first chapter and it just got worse. . . and worse.. . I love it when Kiko finds her voice and finally gets to say to her mother how she’s really feeling (BUT OMG HER MOTHER I HATE HER).

Kiko goes through a story and we also meet characters that suffer from depression and the way that they are portrayed is wonderful. They’re not ashamed by their depression like in so many other YA books, they accept that it is a part of them that they have to cope with it, and don’t feel like it should be hidden from the world. This book has so many positive messages about mental health, I ADORE IT. It had the most WONDERFUL images about how beauty isn’t just one thing, and how there is beauty in everything and “beautiful” cannot be defined by one thing, or one person and that EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. I appreciate that messages SO MUCH.

There is so much art in this book, and that is so wonderful, it added such DEPTH to Kiko’s emotions and really developed with Kiko in the book. Kiko uses art in such a passionate way, and I feel like this will connect with a lot of readers that are into art themselves. Kiko is just so passionate about art, it’s inspirational and like MAGIC.

There’s also a wonderful F/F friendship, which was so lovely, as often with contemporaries I feel that there is too much drama between female friends and it takes away the meaning of the book, but this did NOT happen here in the slightest. There is also a romance in this book… and it’s a little Insta-love, I gotta say, BUT THAT’S OKAY I DIDN’T REALLY MIND?? At some points I was like… “C’mon Kiko… seriously?” but then they seem better as a couple rather than just friends.HOWEVER, I feel that some things were over looked a bit when they really should have spoken about things.

Thing is, there was a slow simmer to their relationship?? SO, Kiko waited until SHE was ready to be in a relationship, and didn’t want to have to rely on Jamie, she wanted to rely on HERSELF for strength. I think that’s why I was so happy about the relationship. Jamie was really lovely and didn’t try to “fix” her, he was just there for her, and yes, he acted stupidly at the beginning, but he too really grew in the book.
As I said before, this is about Kiko finding HERSELF, not a romance, and she didn’t want someone to “fix” her, and she went on a journey of self discovery where she also got more in touch with her culture which was AWSOME.

Ohhhh the writing. I need 849365 years to recover, it was amazing.

ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. I was so absorbed?? I really loved the pacing of the book, it was fast and I read about 80% in one sitting…. YEAH I GO THIS BOOK YESTERDAY.. . AND FINISHED IT THIS MORNING. It was so addictive. That just doest happen with me and contemporary books. AND THAT IS SO RARE FOR A CONTEMPORARY??? I’ve never been so addicted to a contemporary book over the past year or more. BOWMAN is literally a word-wizard because the writing was magical.

OBVIOULY, 5/5 STARS FOR STARFISH!!