Stella

Stella

YA fiction
"You've met someone like me before. If you're at school, I'm
making your life hell. If you have a job, I got the promotion you
deserved. If you have a boyfriend, he's wishing you looked like
me...". Helen Eve's Stella is billed as a mean girls book. It does
cover this territory beautifully. Alternating narrators Stella and
Caitlin inhabit an expensive boarding school with social machinations
that sometimes seem Machiavellian. But their relationship is only one
level of a plot that goes chillingly deeper.
Stella is the Queen Bee of Temperley High, head of the most
exclusive clique on campus, the Stars. There are exactly six girls in
it, mirroring an earlier elite headed by Stella's older sister,
Siena. Their designer star shaped earrings symbolize their unity.
"Not that other people couldn't wear stars if they wanted to--we've
never trademarked it--but cheapening our symbol wouldn't be
adviseable.". In fact at Temperley High doing anything that would
annoy Stella or her girlz is very much not advisable.
Caitlin is the new girl at school, entering in the middle of her
junior year. She's dealing with a new country as well. She and her
father have moved from America to England, leaving behind her mother
and beloved little brother.
At first it looks like Stella and Caitlin will go their separate
ways socially. Caitlin has been befriended by nice girls at about the
opposite end of the social scale from the Stars. Then the unthinkable
happens. Ruby, a Star, commits an act that gets her ostracized from
her clique. Caitlin is Stella's unlikely choice for sixth member.
Perhaps Caitlin has more power than she realizes. Maybe Stella feels
a need to keep an eye on her.
At the end of the year there will be elections for Head Girl and
Boy, the highest student officers, the ones who will choose the
Prefects and basically rule the school. Siena had been elected to
that office. Stella has been training for six years to follow in her
footsteps. She will do aything to achieve what she believes to be her
destiny.
You see Stella is the middle of three perfectly spaced sisters
in a family that could only be described as frighteningly
dysfunctional. Mom has raised her girls to protect their hearts by
letting no one get too close. You know what happened to Siena on her
Elevation night?
Read the book and see.
On a personal note, my most recent Orono Arts Cafe gig had me walking
on clouds. I've really built up rapport with that group. I read
three of my poems. One was about the school closing snow storm we'd
just experienced. One was about an ant invasion of the Orono
Methodist Church kitchen. The final one, Metamorphasis, was about the
ways I'm changing. For emphasis I had worn large blue sparkly
butterfy wings. The people were with me every bit of the way. And I
got so much applause! It was totally breathtaking and intoxicating.
A great big shout out goes out to the wonderful Orono Arts Cafe crew.
Julia Emily Hathaway



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