And the Stars Were Burning Brightly

Genre

Young adult contemporary

Content Warnings

Suicide, intense bullying

Plot summary: And the Stars Were Burning Brightly

It’s been three days since Al killed himself. Three days since Nathan found his older brother’s body. Three days since he hid Al’s drawing with its desperate scribbled note: ‘Help me.’ Nate is certain there has to be more to his brother’s suicide than meets the eye, and he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

My Thoughts

And the Stars were Burning Brightly is the debut novel by Danielle Jawando, a YA dealing with the aftermath of a teen suicide for his family and closest friends. The book is told from two perspectives. Nate, Al’s younger brother, and Megan, who was Al’s classmate. One of the things that really impressed me in this book though was that Al felt like the third main character, despite not being physically present.

Each chapter starts with a short section from Al’s point of view, and both Nate and Megan think about him constantly. Because of this, he feels completely present in the story, so much so that I almost expected him to chime in at certain moments. It really put me in a similar place to the two protagonists, of not quite being able to accept that Al was gone, and that was a really interesting experience.

Al’s death has hit Nate particularly hard, for a few reasons. Not only was he the one who found his brother’s body, which was obviously devastating. He also feels like he might have been to blame; on the day that Al killed himself, Nate ignored a call from him to keep hanging out with his friends. He hasn’t told anybody this, afraid that they’ll be as disgusted by him as he is by himself.

Megan’s having a hard time with Al’s suicide for a different reason. Her other friends never knew that she was close to Al, and, as the story unfolds, we see that they’re not all that supportive of Megan in general. She’s coping with the loss of, she is now realising, possibly her only real friend. As well as coming to understand just how terrible her usual friendship group is.

In order to cope with his feelings, and refocus his grief and guilt into something more productive, Nate gets obsessed with finding out why Al took his own life. The rest of his family is made up of his mother, older brother and younger sister. Their perspective is, broadly speaking, that he should let it go and try to move on, as best he can. Honestly, I’d have liked to spend a little more time seeing how the rest of the family is coping. We know that Nate’s mother is drinking a lot, and that his younger sister is being spared the full detail of what happened. But beyond that, we don’t get as much insight as I’d have liked into how the family is handling things.

Which brings me neatly on to what I’d have been happy to cut to make room for some of that! There was a romance sub-plot in this story that felt, to me, completely unnecessary. I think you could have cut it entirely without losing anything from the story, and it would have left a little more room for some of the family dynamics which I thought were more interesting.

In summary

The story paints a vivid picture of the cruelty of bullying, and the challenges of navigating toxic friendships as a young person today. I think it’s a very important story, sensitively told, and I would definitely recommend it to YA readers.