56 pages • 1 hour read
Wendy MassEvery Soul a Star
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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BetaCharacter Analysis
Ally Summers
Approaching the threshold age of 13, Ally Summers is confident in her world. Indeed, her given name is Alpha, suggesting command, control, and empowerment. Ally is mature for her age, articulate, and responsible, and she embraces the belief that she is unique, self-sufficient, and in charge of her life. She understands what she loves—astronomy; she is grounded by the support of her family; she appreciates the stability of her daily routine. Growing up at Moon Shadow, she has never been exposed to the complicated and often conflicting messages of contemporary pop culture nor does she understand the implications of social media.
Homeschooling for Ally is less an educational protocol and more a lifestyle. She has never measured herself against the opinions and influences of kids her own age. Friends are at best a theory—Ryan, who visits the camp each summer, is the closest thing she has to a friend. She is, however, content. She knows who she is, and that confidence makes her at once admirable and vulnerable. When her parents break the news that she is moving, Ally, in a single, terrifying moment of revelation, sees that there is so much more to the world than what she knows. It is time for Ally to learn and to grow up.
Ally begins the narrative with one set of assumptions—about herself, her family, her life, and the world—and ends with a radically different set of assumptions. Although she anticipates that the solar eclipse will teach her much about the stars, she is not prepared for how that experience will teach her much about herself. Life in a city, in a new home, in a school surrounded by new kids will be scary, but the eclipse teaches her that change is the essential character of the universe. The night Team Exo gathers data, Ally realizes that the universe is constantly in motion, and nothing in the star world she finds so fascinating maintains any position for long.
More importantly, she realizes that like the stars she studies, she is part of a vast complex of others. No star—and no person—is entirely apart and unique. As she helps Bree adjust to her new life at the campsite and then finds herself unexpectedly the object of attention from Jack, Ally learns that other kids can actually help her understand herself better and that social interaction is an indispensable part of defining her identity.
Bree Holden
Early on, Bree Holden accepts that the only thing she has to offer the world is her appearance: “My beauty is all I have to give” (6). The best thing about being pretty, she concedes, is that no one ever expects her to be anything else. Before her parents relocate the family to the Moon Shadow campground, Bree, like Ally, understands her world: Teachers do not expect much from her because she is pretty; she counts herself among the A-list girls socially in her school; she can quickly assess other kids by how they dress and who they sit near in class; she values expensive electronic gadgets and designer clothes; she labors for an hour to get her makeup and her hair ready for school. She sees herself as anything but average. Her future is clear: She will be a supermodel and make enough money to retire before her mid-twenties.
Her family’s move to the campsite upends everything Bree assumed about her life. The experience tests whether she has more than a pretty face and a keen sense of style. Initially she is petulant and whiney, determined to stay in her cabin and avoid what she sees as her unfair and undeserved exile. In her first days at the camp, she cringes at how her new life has compelled her to spend time with science nerds who were never part of her school clique. Perhaps the most telling indication of how much Bree has to learn about herself is her initial resistance to venturing into the camp’s mysterious Labyrinth, where, Ally tells her, people often learn the deepest truths about themselves. Bree hesitates; she fears she has no depths.
As she discovers, she has depths. She opens up to the friendship of both Ally and Jack. She helps Ally understand the realities of her transition to city life. She counsels a confused Jack to work up the nerve to talk to Ally. Bree even finds herself getting caught up in eclipse fever and the tedious work of data gathering with Team Exo. She realizes how small she is, how big and complex the universe is, and how science reveals the mystery and beauty all around. When she at last dares to peer into a telescope, she is conflicted: She is amazed by what she sees and embraces what she has long mocked—her “inner geek.” She sees now that kids are more than the cliques into which they can be easily pigeonholed. By the time her new friends depart, Bree is ready for the challenge of her new life. She has come to understand her inner beauty—that she is much more than a pretty face.
Jack Rosten
Jack Rosten comes from a dysfunctional family. At only 13, Jack is on his fourth stepfather. His biological father, who abandoned the family when Jack was four, is not even a memory; indeed, his mother has cropped his father’s head from any family photos, a sign of the acrimony of the divorce. His mother’s multiple subsequent divorces have impacted the trajectory of Jack’s emotional and psychological development. He lacks self-esteem, believing himself only to be worth ignoring or abandoning.
Jack is in full retreat from what he perceives to be an ugly and unsympathetic real world. He indulges self-destructive habits, most notably his penchant for eating junk food. He is painfully aware of his own appearance; just growing into his body, he is self-conscious over both his weight and his height. He lives most fully in a semi-dream state in which he suspends himself between the real world he cannot control and the fantasy world that he creates. He daydreams in class and doodles aliens and mutant creatures, superheroes and villains. He does not seek friends—his family life taught him that relationships are fraught with danger and risk; rather, he barricades himself in his treehouse, his own fortress of solitude.
The experience at Moon Shadow introduces Jack to the potential beauty and wonder of the real world. Like the other kids, he is stunned by the world of the stars that he discovers and the friendship he experiences. Still, he initially decides not to watch the eclipse: This way, in his mind, the eclipse will not actually happen, and consequently, he will never have to leave Moon Shadow. This retreat indicates how traumatized Jack is: He still believes he can create an imaginary world that is functional and meaningful. Ultimately, however, he rejects that thinking. His decision to join Ally on the hillside indicates his growth.
His attraction to Ally and her generous response to his attentions open him up to the possibility of friendship, and his burgeoning relationship with the jock Ryan introduces him to the idea of taking better care of himself physically and that healthy habits might improve his self-esteem. Jack’s emotional growth, however, is best reflected in the stunning painting he creates in the camp’s Art House. Rather than mutants or aliens, he captures the energy and camaraderie of Team Exo. As he boards the bus to go home, he is ready to return to the real world that has for so long terrorized him. In fact, he promises Ally that he will join his school’s Art Club.
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