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"Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts." I have been most reliably informed that this book is gay and that it slaps, and I'm excited to read it!
Be sure to visit Bantering Books to read all my latest reviews.If only heart alone could make a novel great. If only positive themes of hope, transgender and queer identity, and acceptance were enough to lift a story to the skies.Because if that were the case, Ryka Aoki’s sci-fi/fantasy novel, Light From Uncommon Stars, would soar to the universe and back. And my task as a book blogger would be considerably easier since I would not be writing this lukewarm review.But other than making me hanker
(3.25) I decided to pick up this book because I kept hearing it had similar vibes to Becky Chambers who I love.While it did in the beginning, I wouldn't really compare them. I liked the focus on music, the trope of making a deal with a demon... but the whole alien portion felt pointless.The ending kinda ruined it for me.
This book was weird as hell, but not in a bad way.
"cursed violins", "Faustian bargains", "donuts", "trans girl protagonist", "sapphic"[absolutely smashes 'want to read' button repeatedly]
astoundingly beautiful. l 96%first of all, listen to this quote:✧ ”Listen to me. Listen to me now. For if this dogwood bow can force beauty upon you, then I shall shove every part of myself into that beauty. I shall make you feel all the joy, the terror in loving who you are. The audience might have wanted to turn away, but the cursed bow rendered them helpless. Katrina played a love song smashed against a wall, a dream for a child left beaten in their bed. As Aubergine wailed in Katrina’s hands...
Defiant, affirming, and so tender. Light from Uncommon Stars is a soft and brutally honest SFF about three broken women, whose destinies collide and find belonging and connection with one another. - Follows three women: Katrina, a trans runaway violinist; Shizuka, a Japanese violin teacher who made a deal with the demon to sacrifice seven violin souls to Hell, and is now looking for her final soul; and Lan, a retired space captain and interstellar refugee who opens a donut shop.- This was a gorg...
so delicate. so raw. brutally honest and so soft. a brilliant story about three women navigating through their identity and life <3thank you tor and netgalley for the arc!original: "made a deal with the devil" smashes to read button
I loved this book, but it’s such a tricky, contradictory one to recommend. It’s about aliens and demons and curses, but it’s also a grounded, realistic character study. It’s hopeful and comforting, but it also contains abuse, bigotry, and a lot of brutal descriptions of transmisogyny. This disparate parts combine into a heartachingly affective story, but do be prepared to be reading about both the kindness and the cruelty of humanity.Despite the high concepts and fantastical elements, this isn’t...
I mostly loved it. The San Gabriel Valley setting is inspired, and the identity politics were nuanced and thoughtful, driven by little living details. I had the stomach flu while reading this and I STILL wanted to eat so many of the foods! The violin focus was lovely too.There were a few nitpicky little things I didn't like, such as a constant underpinning of mindless meaningless consumerism and a section that's bizarrely pro-Olive Garden. Also the sci fi elements stay really generic and never q...
Oh my heart. My heart.Or maybe my soul? I dunno, but this book has shattered and healed and shattered something again and then healed it once more.Full review on my blog, The Suspected Bibliophile (live October 21, 2021)Trigger Warnings (not complete): racism, homophobia, transphobia, slut-shaming, sexual assault, rape, deadnaming, misgenderingI received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review
i'm torn over this book because there are some genuinely beautiful moments in here - but it was also an extremely frustrating reading experience. what i loved: the concept is pretty creative and bold for a debut so kudos to the author for that. i also appreciated how the story felt like a love letter to asian american culture. my favorite character by far was katrina - i loved seeing her arc, how she painfully but surely grew into herself, how her journey to fully accept herself paralleled with
This was surprisingly good. I wouldn't really call it a Good Omens replacement or a cookie-cutter Chambers, but here's something about it that was uncommonly good: it takes three wildly different genre scenarios and successfully blends them together in a way that REALLY shouldn't work but DOES.Three characters, three wildly different situations. Katrina Nguyen is a transgender violin prodigy that takes a ton of hits in the tale, really describing a ton of prejudice and hate while also being pick...
"Defiantly joyful" is a good word for this book- a story that looks unflinchingly at the harsh realities that many trans youth face, all the while weaving a hopeful tale about love, music, found family, and mouthwatering food. It's character driven science fiction peppered with Faustian bargains, cursed violins, and aliens who run a donut shop. There's a lot happening here but somehow it manages to fit together in a beautiful tapestry.Katrina Wen is a trans runaway and a gifted violin prodigy us...
