Kristen Morgan’s blog is about to get her into trouble. Deep trouble. Online, she is known as “Stargazer” from the popular Stargazing from Nowhere blog, while in real life she is a regular fifteen-year-old high school student. This online anonymity is quite liberating, allowing her to be completely honest with her readers. Through a twist of fate, Rising Tide, the band she has bashed the most online, ends up in her small town, which sends Kristen into an excited panic. To continue gathering fresh material for her blog, she poses as a Rising Tide fan. After sneaking into the band’s private party, she comes face to face with the band’s drummer, Michael Stevens, who happens to be even more gorgeous in person than she cares to admit. Something unexpected also happens to her when she meets him: she becomes giddy, nervous, and inarticulate, leading Kristen to realize that her interest in Michael has nothing to do with her blog, but everything to do with her heart. As Kristen and Michael grow closer, does she have to make a choice between blog or boyfriend…Or is the choice made for her?
Many teenagers dream of writing a blog that’s so successful they become famous. Some might even hope that through their blog they might meet their favorite actor or band. In “Stargazing from Nowhere” Kristen Morgan manages to achieve both. Although her blog is still hugely popular, her blog name is anonymous and non one knows she’s behind it all. Her blog has great influence on the popularity (or lost popularity) of Rising Tide her once favorite band. As the story unfolds, Kristen is torn between her personal feelings about Rising Tide and her “professional” feelings about them.
A few members of Teen Lit Rocks were able to read the ebook “Stargazing from Nowhere” by Isabel Thomas. Here are some of their thoughts about the book:
Our new teen reader Erin says:
The book “Stargazing from Nowhere” follows Kristin, a typical teenager inhabiting a life riddled with small troubles, and one big secret. Using her uncle’s insider knowledge, Kristin mercilessly criticizes Rising Tide, a young band, on her anonymous blog. All is well until she meets a member, and falls head over heels for him. Though I found the ending predictable, and the plot repetitive, I liked how the supporting characters were developed, and how they interacted with the plot. Blog posts were incorporated into the novel, and though I found it slightly distracting, it did help portray the plot. I felt embarrassed for Kristin as she traveled through the story. Kristin’s teenage life was very realistic and relatable, despite the highly unlikely circumstances. “Stargazing from Nowhere” proved to be a rapid read, with patches of very detailed paragraphs. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but felt that it lacked the twists and turns a novel should possess.
Cassie Guion says:
Maybe it’s because I’m far beyond the age of high school and the drama that comes with being a high school student, or maybe it’s because I was never terribly interested in boy bands and music trends, but this novel never quite gelled for me. First of all, I had a really hard time suspending my disbelief about some pretty central ideas, like the fact that a 15-year-old had been writing a blog long enough and well enough to have developed a following of tens of thousands, and the fact that one blogger, no matter how popular, would actually have the power to jeopardize the future of a band as well known as Rising Tide was painted to be.
But more than that, the whole story just read like a novelization of every fangirl’s deepest and wildest dream — that the celebrity she has a crush on will one day have occasion to cross paths with her and will, of course, proceed to fall madly in love with her. It’s a cliched story, and it’s one I have never been a fan of. Now, to the book’s credit, it did handle facets of said relationship more believably than most, but the book was predictable from start to finish.
And I think that was the most disappointing thing for me. I wanted this book to be a lot more than it was. I appreciated Kristin’s growth over the course of the novel, and I think Stargazing from Nowhere had a lot of really important things to say about anonymity on the internet and how we often talk and gossip about celebrities as if they aren’t people with feelings who our words have the ability to hurt. But I honestly wish that Kristin and Michael hadn’t patched things up in the end, that their romance had stayed one of those summer flings that they both learned from and moved on from. The way the book ended, the more important messages got overshadowed by the improbable teenage romance.
Cara Blevins says:
I began this book with excitement. I’m a blogger, I love unlikely love stories. But from the beginning, Stargazing From Nowhere was problematic for me.
Some of my bigger issues: She’s a high school student with a part time job at her mom’s clothing store who somehow has time to run an extremely successful (and moneymaking!) blog and twitter account in her spare time. Her mother essentially abandoned her 15 yo daughter to run her store by herself for weeks. The rock star boy of Kristen’s dreams who she’s been writing a blog about for years comes to town and instantly falls in love with her too. The town so tiny it only has one little inn on Main Street somehow also has a tv station, a multi-level party facility and a trendy coffee shop that her best friend conveniently works at. All of the adults in Kristen’s life seem to want her to decide to marry her deceased father’s best friend’s son RIGHT NOW, forget about college or maybe dating other boys, this is her only and best option.
It was all just too much. While the authors seemed to want to cover some heavier emotional territory, the principal relationships were so unrealistic and poorly defined and the story so predictable and flawed that there was absolutely no emotional impact for me. I can’t recommend this book.
What Do You Think?