I loved this book - set in a dystopian time and place close to our own, and with a cast of interesting characters, this is a new and exciting read about the power of women and their bodies.

Celeste is like any other prepubescent girl, enjoying life and school, and awaiting the arrival of puberty. However for the females of this world, their skin is marked, and those freckles and spots mark their future - career, family life, fate... the childhood markings change overnight once they reach the changeling period, where they become irresistible young women, a dangerous role to inhabit until they reach the safety of womanhood.

Celeste's brother Miles is intrigued by the markings, and attempts to make his mark as a male interpreter, a role only filled by women. One of the markings on Celeste's newly changed body will change their futures...

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing my with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

In a world where a girl’s future is foretold by the markings on her skin, Celeste feels secure knowing that her fate is mapped out for her. As she approaches her Changeling period - when she will wake up one day with her adult markings in place and becoming briefly irresistible to men, she starts to question the way that girls’ bodies don’t seem to belong to them, and the rules that she is expected to obey. When a shocking revelation leads to disastrous events outside of her control, will she have the strength to survive and fight back?

This fascinating look at female bodily autonomy deals with some very serious topics such as abduction, rape and victim shaming. Thought provoking and at times shocking, this book is an important feminist read. Although it deals with such difficult themes, following Celeste’s journey is empowering as you root for her to overcome the adversities she faces as a young girl in such a controlling world.

Highly recommended, especially for readers who enjoyed books such as the Handmaid’s Tale and The Power.

Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter is one of the strangest books I have read. Walter has a wonderful imagination and was well written. I was interested to read this novel but immediately struggled. Celeste (a changeling) and her brother, Miles Morton are the main characters and I could not connect to them or any other characters. Is this fiction or sci-fi? During reading the ebook version, I wrestled to understand with the illustrations between chapters in the book.. I misunderstood the book and wondered whether it was in the future or in real time or sci-fi. I had an array of feelings and found the novel weird, wonderful and totally misunderstanding. .

I give this a 3 start rating.

I WANT TO THANK NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF READING AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

The concept of Body of Stars is this: when girls are born, they have a series of marks on their body which predict various life events - their family, career, health and so on. Different countries treat their women differently and we are given glimpses of that, but mostly the story focuses on what is essentially America. It’s simultaneously about women’s bodies and their choices in life. A fascinating idea for a book, let down slightly by its pacing and ending. It’s a slow burn and then suddenly everything happens in a hundred pages, and then at the end it kind of fizzles out. Despite this it’s definitely worth a read, if you like the Handmaid’s Tale or The Power.

This is an incredible and important book about female agency and objectification. While there are many dystopian/fantasy stories that tackle this topic, this one stands out to me for many reasons.

The tired tropes of the genre fail to emerge. There is no romantic subplot. There is no hard takedown of a corrupt government/system. Consequences are real and felt.

The world building is wonderful and believable and is close enough to reality to make the parallels clear. I loved the book extracts and letters etc that we get between chapters as a further insight into this world.

The book really explores victim blaming and parts of this story are very difficult to read and unfortunately not too difficult to imagine in real life.

People ask how many feminist patriarchal takedowns we need and I would argue, as many as it takes. The book says it best:

"The terror and risk we experienced was nothing compared to what girls faced elsewhere... Our country had rape laws, anti discrimination policies in work places, birth control and the chance for most women to access the same education as men"

Basically just because it is not as bad as it COULD be, does not mean we should have to settle for anything less than complete equality.

This book is thought provoking and nuanced, the sort of book where you highlight every page and think about it for days and will probably be required reading in schools one day.

Completely recommend.

This was simultaneously wonderful and deeply frustrating - not because of the writing (which I really enjoyed), but because of the all too believable world this inhabited, with the limits and shame of women defining their existence.

Celeste Morton is born into a world where girls are born with an individual skin pattern mapping their destiny. Now on the cusp of womanhood, she is excited, but fearful of the dangers of this changeling period. Extracts from the Office of the Future manual, Mapping the Future, interlace Celeste’s story.

Mapping the Stars examines the objectification of women and their power. The novel opens as an intriguing fantasy, becoming much darker as it progresses.

Walter has crafted a beautiful and original book. She maintains the tension throughout.

The disparity between the UK and US edition covers and back cover blurbs, highlights the publisher's struggle to categorise this novel. This is a fantasy for those who don't like fantasy, and a feminist dystopia for those weary of such.

A stunning debut.

My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

I was a little torn on what to give this book, I was intrigued by the premise and as a big fan of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale I had reasonably high hopes. Perhaps it is unfair for any reviewer to draw comparisons with Atwood however the problem I found with this novel was that so much revolved around the protagonist's brother. It was hard to empathise with a male character being restricted from one career path whilst the women in the society did not have any real ownership over their own bodies let alone any choice over their future. I did like the pages from relevant texts that were interspersed between chapters to give context.

It may be that personally I like my protagonists to be the agents of their own success (even if they need help) and here it felt as though the fates of the female population were being 'saved' by Miles and he was attempting to instigate the change that may their salvation.

Body of Stars is a dystopian book with feminist themes similar to those found in The Power by Naomi Alderman. It focuses heavily on rape culture in a world where women's lives and futures are mapped on their bodies. The writing was beautiful, and the themes were important. However, I'm not sure it was completely successful. A lot of the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and it wasn't all due to the graphic content. This review has a heavy content warning for sexual assault discussion, so please take care!

Set in a world where the freckles, moles, and birthmarks on women's bodies can be used to predict the future. Celeste Morton eagerly awaits her passage to adulthood. But when she changes, she learns a devastating secret about her brother, Miles, fate. A secret that could destroy her family, a secret she will do anything to keep. Yet Celeste isn't the only one keeping secrets, and when the sibling's lies collide, it leads to a tragedy that will irrevocably change Celeste's fate.

The most compelling theme of the book surrounded rape culture. In this world, teenagers face a change in their freckles, shifting from their childhood predictions to their adult ones. When this change has newly occurred is when they are most in danger. These newly changed teenagers have a draw to them that everyone around them can detect.

It's a relatively common occurrence for these newly changed teenagers to be kidnapped. Their new adult predictions are a source of erotica in this world, where the patterns on their body will end up on pinup cards. They face drugging, sexual assault, and are only returned after the glow of the new change has left them. After that, they lose their rights to a good job and a good school; they face harassment from society and those who used to be their friends. It is, after all, their fault for going into shady areas, right?

This is a critique of the way rape culture works in our real world. An extreme scenario that still manages to be too close to reality. It's not these women's fault, it's the people who kidnapped them, the people who did this to them. In our world women are told they shouldn't wear short skirts, they shouldn't behave in certain ways, because if they do they're 'asking for it'. It doesn't matter if women do exactly what they're supposed to, the first thing people will ask is 'what was she wearing' 'was she promiscuous' 'did she flirt'? The book highlights these hypocrisies in a blunt, traumatic way; the author doesn't gloss over the trauma, so the critique of rape culture is easy to discern.

Focusing on this rape culture critique, there were a few things I wasn't sure about. First of all, the newly changed teenagers being gorgeous and irresistible was strange to me. I'm not sure why it was necessary other than to mark these women as vulnerable. It seemed like a way to excuse the behaviour of the people around them, which I'm sure wasn't the intent. A lack of bodily autonomy and sexual assault can occur to any type of women at any point, not just the ones who are at that moment 'special' and I don't think the book did enough to explore that.

I'm also not sure about how they were aiming to combat the issue. The sexual assault isn't able to be predicted, which is linked to why it's seen as the women's fault in this world. Their idea of how to prevent it was trying to figure out how it could be predicted. If the sexual assault was fate, then it couldn't be the woman's fault because it was meant to happen. The characters point out this isn't a perfect solution, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. There's no hope in holding rapists accountable, the best we can hope for is that it's not the victim who is at fault. I don't like that idea.

I find this a lot in books about strict sex differences, but it's always too simplistic. I'm glad the author approached the concept of trans people and how they might remove or create freckles. The book also broached the topic of how gender works in different cultures, where women can hide their bodies if they want to, or not want to know about what their future predicts. In that way, it does a lot better than other books with a similar setup. However, I'm still left wondering about non-binary people, intersex people, or people with hormonal differences. If the moles change during puberty, is it hormonal? There's so much natural difference between people of the same sex that I can't help but wonder how that impacts things. Those differences would likely be even more obvious in a society where there are these distinct sex markers, and I'm disappointed that it's never considered in depth. I recognise this is a feminist thematic book, not a study into biology but when you have something so binaric I can't help but notice what's missing.

You can probably tell this book has left me with a lot to think about, and that's one of the reasons I did appreciate it. I don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions, but there are important discussions to be had. I'm sure people who generally like feminist fiction would enjoy what this book has to add.

In the end, what let the book down for me was my complete apathy for the brother. He was such an important character, everything is linked to him and his fate, but I didn't care. All of the emotional, poignant scenes that involved him didn't impact me. In fact, I'd say I actively disliked him. Sometimes I wondered if he was truly the main character, everything revolves around him, the suffering, the secrets, the emotional scenes. I didn't connect to him or his involvement at all. There were so many other interesting things going on in the world that I would have rather focused on.

Overall, I have very mixed feeling about this book. It was deeply thoughtful, bringing up important discussions surrounding rape culture and the impact of sexual violence on women's lives. On the other hand, it sometimes left a bad taste in my mouth, and I didn't enjoy the sibling relationship or character arc in that regard. Regardless, I'm certain people who enjoy this type of feminist literature will find the book adds an interesting perspective to the table.

This book has a really interesting premise, with girls having marks (freckles essentially) on their bodies that predict and determine their futures, these are monitored and recorded, with women tasked as interpreters who mark these against a number of things like their career, their love life/future family, even losses they may face. All girls will wake up one day and suddenly are ‘in between’ girl and womanhood, where they will be at their most desirable (and most at risk), a time incredibly dangerous for them where they risk being abducted by men who cannot resist them and are ruined by them. Upon their return, usually weeks later, they are blamed and forever stained by this encounter, with university and other opportunities no longer available to them.

Body of Stars follows Celeste, a girl who any day will face the ‘in between’ stage, her brother Miles wishes badly to be an Interpreter however this is deemed a woman’s job. When Celeste changes, her marks predict a fate for Miles that terrifies Celeste, however she herself has danger in front of her to face.

I don’t know how I felt about this book, it’s an interesting concept and is clever in how it looks at rape culture, political and societal autonomy over women’s bodies and toxic masculinity, although unfortunately it’s one of those books where the people who read this will already know this area is a cesspit for women’s rights and the people who need to learn this won’t be the ones reading this. As such, this book is just a brutal reminder and doesn’t essentially feel empowering and will leave you feeling outraged because we see every day women both valued, controlled and condemned with their bodies by men and a male led society. In this book, raped girls are spat on and shunned while also being blamed for seducing men, or being alone with a man, or being attractive to men, and I needed a lot more in the conclusion of this book to really get past that. That said, this isn’t a criticism of the book, if a magic wand could be waved, this book wouldn’t have felt real. That said, I can imagine this book being hugely triggering so please be careful.

My main issue with this book is more the involvement of Miles, I just didn’t really need that much of him in the story or to give him that much of an important role. Throughout the book Celeste’s brother feels incredibly entitled, this is a world where men can literally do anything but one thing; be an interpreter, and yet he acts so sullen about it. He also resents that he doesn’t have marks and a future laid out for him, like freedom and a blank canvas is so awful. While the first point is later explained a little more, it still doesn’t change the fact he’s a man who wants it all and doesn’t understand ‘no’, this is further shown when he doesn’t understand why Celeste won’t show him her new marks and so drags her into an alley, restrains her and attempts to lift her clothes to see her body. While he feels bad later for this, 1) Celeste lets him off way too much for this and 2) a dialogue was severely missed her where consent could have been explored and discussed with literally the only man in the book who would’ve listened. That was frustrating and hard to get by, as much as Miles is trying to do something good, he still asserted himself and his strength over a woman and tried to take consent from her regrading access to her own body and it deserved a bigger conversation about make entitlement and the different stages of sexual abuse and toxicity.

Miles aside, this is an interesting book and concept, just prepare yourself to be outraged a lot.