BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
I know, I promised myself I’d never write a review again, but barely anyone has talked about this, which needs to change.
Okay, so why does Disney always start a few projects, but when one of them gets popular, they immediately drop everything else like it didn’t exist? Because, did you know that Disney has made multiple book series, and one of them was called Star Darlings, and it was pretty good.
But then it was cancelled.
Star Darlings was probably my entire childhood, but it was unfortunately canceled in 2017. The books were written by Ahmet Zappa and Shana Madoon Zappa, and in total there were twelve books in the main series and two sequels. There was also a small animated show for it, and a doll line.
Star Darlings is set on a planet called Starland, and just about everything revolves around stars. The creators probably should’ve studied a little bit more because it’s kind of infuriating. Anyways, Starland is a high tech utopian society that is powered by wish energy.
Wishlings (aka us) are from Wishworld (aka Earth), and Starlings can come to our world to grant our wishes to power their planet. Starlings can go to school to learn how to grant our wishes such as Starling Academy, our mostly main setting.
We follow twelve students at Starling Academy who have been assigned to secretly grant twelve wishes before graduating by the headmistress, Lady Stella. There’s a prophecy that says, if they grant the wishes then it can save Starland in some way, but we don’t know that in the beginning, and think it’s because Lady Stella thinks younger Starlings could get more positive wish energy
Like I’ve said before, this series was probably my entire childhood, and after rereading it six times, what do I think of it now? Well…
The first two books were honestly pretty slow, and were like a five out of ten. Each book focuses on a different character, and the first two books were about Sage and Libby (in that order).
Sage felt like a typical protagonist to me, though she luckily didn’t become one of those characters where the entire world revolved around her, she was pretty bland. I think it hit, the moment when she revealed herself to her Wisher for a final goodbye. The moment was supposed to be pretty emotional, but in the context of the story it was unnecessary and kind of pointless.
Libby And The Class Election was even worse, as I felt like absolutely nothing happened. Libby was also really boring, as one of her qualities is that she is basically nice to everyone, and I saw a wasted opportunity for a character.
I think I would’ve enjoyed Libby better if she was more like her animated show counterpart; since she actually had a distinct personality that probably could’ve been explored more in the story.
It was in the epilogue of book two did the ball start rolling, but it started off probably the most frustrating arc in my opinion.
One of the Star Darlings, Scarlet, was kicked out because there was apparently a mix up, and a girl named Ophelia took her place. It was such a drag because it was obvious that something was wrong, because Ophelia was way behind everyone else, and they only really kept her around because she was nice. Though I found her really annoying and it’s also probably why I find Leona, one of Ophelia’s only friends and a Star Darling, a bit annoying. She was so defensive about Ophelia, and was glad Scarlet was kicked out. I understand that they didn’t get along and such, but like… stop, please.
The Scarlet and Ophelia mix up arc was also the reason why I was so disappointed by Scarlet’s book, because it was literally just about the arc. It was also about Scarlet proving to everyone that Ophelia was not a real Star Darling.
Though one thing that really surprised me as a kid, and now, was how much was going outside of the missions, and how invested I was. The arcs and conflicts with the Star Darlings figuring out who is behind the energy crisis is what I loved when I was a kid, and probably why I loved the ending for the main series so much. The missions did not matter, it was the Star Darlings conspiring against this headmistress, and I ate that story arc like Zeus had offered me nectar and ambrosia.
I understand that not everyone enjoys that, and I’ve been criticizing a childrens’ series. So, despite that this is just my opinion, and I probably should’ve said that before.
Anyways, Leona’s book (the third book) was kind of interesting, but I think I started to really like the series in book four, Vega’s Fashion Disaster.
The story broke from the typical plot, as the problem that Vega encountered when granting a wish. Was that she couldn’t become good friends with her Wisher and even made her hate her for a while. It was ironic, because Vega is the top student. Not only did it give the story new stakes that we can understand, the story was starting to get more and more interesting.
Clover And The Parent Fix was my favorite book because it broke from the typical format, and it was during the Lady Stella arc when they thought it was Lady Stella who was behind the energy crisis.
The format was what added tension to the story, as they didn’t go through the typical ceremony. Also, Clover kind of just found a Wish Orb that night that wanted to be granted. Clover rushes down the Wishworld immediately in secret, which gives the story a dimension of urgency and danger. Despite that, Clover was the only Star Darling who didn’t need help on her mission, which made us feel like she’s achieved something.
The animated show did none of this.
There was a 3D animated show by the same name that was supposed to be some kind of adaptation, that not only had so much potential, but the mouse decided to massacre it.
The first episode is loosely based on the Star Darlings finding out they are Star Darlings, but it goes down much differently. It doesn’t happen during orientation, and the biggest difference is that Lady Stella just tells them that they need to fulfil a prophecy to save Starland. Not only did this eliminate so much drama, we only see this be relevant twice.
And the animated show was smothered in corporate promotion, because they made most of the episodes about the first five and most iconic Star Darlings. When there was an episode about another Star Darling, they did not have a voice actor and it was really weird. The other characters would be talking, but the main character of the episode would only use things like body language, and they wouldn’t even grunt or anything. They literally used some of the Star Darlings as background characters because they were that insignificant.
The Power Of Twelve was a special that was based off of the last book, Gemma And The Ultimate Standoff, and was the last thing they ever produced for the animated show. In the way that they had to actually follow the books, they crammed in so much information that happened during the books. So, imagine how confused everyone was.
We open with the girls calling Gemma, the last Star Darlings to go on her mission. She does not have much time to grant her wish, and we are told the stakes and such just as exposition. Then we cut to the rest of the Star Darlings having a meeting to figure out who is behind the energy crisis, and this is when we get our cram session.
Then Piper says she had a premonition, and she had seen this scary looking person in her dreams. They take note of that, and we cut to sometime later, and the Star Darlings get a call from Gemma. Apparently, Gemma has granted a bad wish which would’ve released negative wish energy and made the situation on Starland even worse.
Leona goes to help Gemma on Wishworld, and the other Star Darlings go find the wish and try to destroy it. Despite how Gemma has no real way of communicating with the Star Darlings from Wishworld in the books.
They destroy the bad wish, Leona and Gemma are back and have reversed the wish, and there is a blackout. We then are introduced to Lady Cordial, who totally isn’t a pretty important character. This character was also never mentioned in the series up until now, with multiple chances to establish her character.
Lady Cordial is with Professor Ursa, and tells them the mission was successful.
The Star Darlings then go confront Lady Stella, because they have concluded she was behind it which was supposed to happen one book ago.
While that’s happening, Lady Stella realizes, hey, all the evidence applies to Lady Cordial, and Lady Cordial reveals herself as Rancora, the one who is behind the energy crisis.
The Star Darlings defeat her with their Power Crystals they got from the missions, and yada yada you get the point.
The really abrupt reveal makes it seem like Rancora didn’t actually trick them. It was too sudden of a turning point, that not only makes the other characters look dumb, but we the audience have no time to actually digest what the actual heck just happened. We don’t feel like they have achieved anything at all, since everything was so quickly shoved in our face. It also could’ve been done with the episodes we had gotten before.
But no, we got pointless school drama, a mean girl, and a really rushed finale.
It is honestly a huge shame, because there was so much potential to turn into a compelling animated show, with honestly excellent world building and a chance to improve the places where the book was weak.
The first sequel was called Good Wish Gone Bad, and it focused on Lady Stella and Rancora, because they were apparently best friends. The prequel stuff was pretty good, and everything that happened in the present was absolutely anticlimactic, and it was disappointing to be honest.
The second sequel, Stealing Starlight, is about Vivica. Vivica is the typical mean girl who is absolutely jealous of the Star Darlings. Vivica could’ve become a Star Darling, but she didn’t make the final cut and that’s why she has a burning hatred for the Star Darlings. Rancora goes up to her and asks her to give her more power by going to Wishworld and granting a bad wish. Vivica agrees and the Star Darlings must reverse the wish, and you know how they do it?
They write a song. Yes, that actually happened. No, I cannot make this up at all. And did it change Vivica? No.
What I found really interesting was that Vivica didn’t exactly feel better, and she could’ve had a good redemption arc and character development if that was not the last installment into the series.
There was supposed to be a graphic novel, and books fifteen through seventeen to be published in summer of 2017, but all of them were cancelled.
The authors haven’t said much on their social media, and there has been no confirmed reason why the series was discontinued. It was most likely because it was around the time Descendents was gaining popularity, and like good-old Disney fashion, they’ll immediately drop everything else and boost that.
And the series actually had so much potential, but it needed much more than what it was given to actually spread its wings to fly.
A thing that I found a bit awkward, was that there would be some skips that would be filled up with exposition. I think we also should’ve gotten more time with the characters being kids, so we could have gotten more of their personalities and character dynamics. As well as introduce us to other characters outside of the Star Darlings, like other students and Star Preparatory students.
I also feel like we even couldn’t get so much out of each of the Star Darlings; who each had a book in their perspective. The Star Darlings just feel one dimensional, and were kind of just being their typical character archetype. I understand that the Star Darlings are meant to be based on astrological signs, but it would’ve been more interesting if they had at least some kind of inner struggle or personal issues, since it is already not unheard of even in the society that is Starland. It would’ve also been interesting that the missions contributed to their character development in a way, and they could’ve had some kind of background growth to keep each of them interesting somewhat. They mostly just go into their family life and character quirks which honestly didn’t give us much on their actual character.
Cassie was probably the best written out of all of the Star Darlings, since we got to explore her personality outside of her own book. We know a bunch about her, and she’s one of the only characters I actually have headcanons for, as well as some kind of character development attached to her.
Libby is also probably the weakest character. Like I said, she has barely any substance to her, and doesn’t contribute to the plot that much. In my opinion, her book was my least favorite.
It’s not only the first two books that are boring.
I’ve been rereading the series for the sixth time, and I’ve noticed that I’ve been kind of just speedrunning it; because it can get pretty boring in the parts I don’t need to write down. Listen, I may or may not be rewriting a 200,000 word long story that’s a version of Star Darlings because I wanted to make my own conclusion, and I got really emotionally attached to it. I have written about 62,000 words in a month, you cannot stop me.
But overall, there is unfortunately not so much substance to events and characters, and the story needed more room and time to truly use that potential. The world building, art, and premise is really interesting and good, but the execution wasn’t the greatest, and we will unfortunately never see what it could’ve become.
While writing my own version I found it to be a struggle to write the other characters I didn’t create, because despite the books dedicated to them, and the characters I could write were people like Cassie, because I could actually understand her character through more than just prologue exposition.
It was also fun to write a character who had an outside perspective of the events, because I could vent my frustrations.
I know I’ve been kind of trashing on my beloved childhood, but I truly do love this series with all my heart. The series doesn’t exactly hold up now, but kid me was obsessed with it and I still am, since the fandom is still somewhat alive.
The only people left are mostly just moms of the kids who liked the show, artists, and toy collectors.
Speaking of toys, the doll line was also discontinued, but they are actually worth a large sum of money from about fifty to a hundred dollars. I unfortunately own none of them. You can still get the books individually. They’re at a fairly decent price, so I don’t know if they’re still making copies or something.
So do I think you should go read it or suggest it to a younger kid? Kind of. I’ve already spoiled enough, but you may or may not be able to get a kid to hold their attention long enough for a series like this. I remember having to go back and reread the series, and the only reason why it took me a long time to read it the first time was because I didn’t have all the books. I was both confused and didn’t have a large attention span. This also however, was when I thought two hundred pages was long and I just liked the cover art. The world building is what kept me going, so I honestly don’t know.
Maybe just get a kid as stubborn as me, who refused to drop the series. It’s your own choice, the books are like ten bucks.