Title: When the Stars Whisper
Author: Sarah Khatib
Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
Genre: Literary Fiction
First Publication: 2022
Language: English
Book Summary: When the Stars Whisper by Sarah Khatib
Will the stars be able to guide and aid a broken heart?
The repercussions of a car accident claw their way into the security blanket of an obsidian-haired boy, and tear it aprart viciously, marking the beginning of a new chapter with the end of a life.
Malachi Alakrab’s universe falls apart when his friend dies. The distraught boy is left dealing with all his insecurities and fears, and is trying desperately to piece his life back together, celestial by celestial.
When everything falls apart, we tend to fall back in search of solace, peace, love, and acceptance. Sometimes we lose our way and disintegrate… is Malachi destined to a similar fate?
Will his journey of healing lead him to open up to a whole new world and new people?
Book Review: When the Stars Whisper by Sarah Khatib
Sarah Khatib’s When the Stars Whisper was good for showing how the decisions we make today do affect the lives of those around us; even the lives we fail to acknowledge or the lives that we think would be better off without us. Sometimes life becomes too hard to handle and we, as humans, forget that we were put on this earth for a reason and we need time to figure that reason out. One mistake, no matter how big it is, does not define us as people. Life is full of mistakes, but they are never something we should regret, just something we should look back on as a lesson.
When The Stars Whisper is a quick, piercing novel about a boy who feels plagued with guilt after his involvement in a car accident that killed his friend. When Malachi Alakrab’s buddy, Eros Remington, passes away, his whole world comes crashing down. The troubled young man is forced to confront all of his anxieties and insecurities and is frantically attempting to put his life back together, one fragment at a time.
When The Stars Whisper wasn’t just fictional, it was realistic in the sense that everything that happens in the novel happens in real life too. High school is filled with misunderstood teens, drinking, crushes, and sometimes death. We may not experience all of these things, but we are all affected by them. A high school is a community within itself, and when something tragic happens, it affects the students and staff as a whole. Students, staff, and parents will come together for support while a few start to feel hopeless and overwhelmed by whatever is going on. Sarah Khatib does a good job of describing each of these elements to the core and is a good representation of how, no matter how much you try to help yourself or how much others try to help you, the decisions you make can be major obstacles stopping your from overcoming what needs to be overcome.
I love the way Sarah Khatib told the story. She doesn’t just tell the story through narration. She also tells it through conversations and letters to show how different friends of Malachi try to cope with their friend’s death. Each element tells the story, and each has a different point of view. This really added to the book because you weren’t just told a story, you were shown the story through every way possible. From the very beginning, the book had me hooked. I liked the plot of the story because it was realistic and there was no storybook ending. The author did an amazing job of writing the story and planning out the plot.
I appreciated Sarah Khatib’s honest, direct portrayal of mental health. It’s a heavy read, and I can tell that the author invested a lot of emotional energy into it. To conclude, this is a very touching and engaging book, especially the way the author writes. You can also actually learn a good life lesson from this book. I think all young people can relate to this book and learn something. I’d recommend it to those interested in a fast and painful-yet-necessary read.
