Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story follows our protagonist, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, in her life at a theater where all the characters of all the world’s plays live. She manages the daily drama of Ophelia; her best friends are fairies from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; she has a love/hate crush going on with a character from “The Tempest” and a certain sailor from “The Little Mermaid” has a thing for her; and all the while she searches for the truth about how she came to be left at the theater as a baby and raised by the crew and characters there. But she’s also a teen, so she’s brings plenty of sass and well-intentioned mistakes to the story.

The author has a background in theater so it makes sense that she could bring that world to life, and I think it shows in the writing that she knows what she’s talking about. She made the right choice to put her story there. However, I do not have a background, or even a very deep interest, in theater so it felt as though there were parts of the story that should have been more meaningful to me if I had that “in” to the story. That being said, I really did enjoy the idea of finding out who a character is after they finish playing the part written for them and walk off the stage. In this book, they’re likely to head to the green room for a cup of coffee and that’s when the interesting stuff starts to happen.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy was Beatrice’s name – she goes by “Bertie.” It’s terrible. All I could think of was “Bert the Turtle” and “Bertle Turtle” and other uncomplimentary things. Beatrice is a beautiful name and I can understand as a teen wanting something a little more fun and a little less sophisticated. But Bertie? Not to mention that Bertie sounds like a pet name given to your grandmother by her elderly gal pals. Anyway….



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