10/10 - no notes - This was superb. Perfect for fans of Hitchhiker's Guide and Serenity! I am very curious to see what Aoki does next.

The writing is gorgeous, the story is heartbreaking and hilarious, the characters are well-drawn and sneak into your heart, and the descriptions of food are divine.

thank you to Netgalley and Tor Forge for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

full review to come.

Just could not get into this title. I think it was mainly the formatting, but I had a really difficult time following and understanding what was happening. Maybe this would do well for others, but it just wasn't for me.

This book is truly incredible. Beautiful & layered & connective. Have hand sold many copies & is one of my favorite books to gift people.

Absolutely brilliant. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and will definitely purchase a copy for my collection.

I didn’t really know what to expect from this but after reading I think it’s criminally underrated. It’s also a book that feels like it was made for me: there’s (older) sapphics, (cursed) violinists, found family, complicated family dynamics (especially mother-daughter/eldest daughter feelings), and coming-of-age/finding your place in the world narrative. I love this book too much, I can’t even criticize it.

Light from Uncommon Stars was an unexpected and surprising read for me. It is funny, unique and full of heart.

I, unfortunately, had a hard time with the writing style with this one. It was just too choppy for me and I ended up DNFing.

I have never read anything like this! Our 3 main characters being an alien trying to save Earth and make great donuts, a trans violin prodigy who loves playing game scores, and a violin teacher trying to get her soul back from a demon. They (and a few others) become such a perfect found family in this (mostly) lighthearted story of finding yourself. There is a deep love of music woven into it all. Overall I enjoyed every page!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

I’m not usually a big science fiction fan, but Ryka Aoki may have changed me for good. This book was absolutely rich and stunningly pulled together and I was sad to say goodbye to the characters at the end of our journey together. ❤️

Katrina Nguyen is a young transgender woman who has run away from her abusive home. Her father hates what she is and is ashamed of her. He beats her often. Her often refuge is music and she has a violin that is her most prized possession although she hasn't been able to take lessons outside of YouTube. She has little self confidence but knows that somehow she must play the violin.

Shizuka Satomi was the most famous violinist of her generation and the most famous violin teacher currently. She is also the Queen Of Hell, since she has signed a contract to deliver seven violinist souls to Hell which will relieve her of having to give up her own soul. She has already delivered six students' souls and is looking for her last student.

Lan Tran is a doughnut shop owner and meets Shizuka Satomi there when she stops to buy doughnuts. But Lan is more than a shop owner. She is an alien who has shepherded her family to this world to escape war and destruction. There is an instant spark between Lan and Shizuka although neither knows the other's secret.

The lives of these three women will intersect and change each life. Shizuka takes Katrina as a student, moving her into her own home and instructing her. Katrina has a feeling for the music that no student before her has had and Shizuka knows that she could become a star. But what of the contract she has made with Hell?

This book was a Hugo Award Finalist along with many other awards. It is a body positive story along with being a love story on many levels. The three women form a family that supports each individual and helps them find their way and give their talents to the world. The author, Ryka Aoki, is a transgender woman herself so writes Katrina's story from personal knowledge. Readers will fall in love with Katrina and keep reading to see how this story will turn out. This book is recommended for readers of science fiction, music lovers and those interested in the difficulties transgender people face in their daily life.

Oof. I really don't want to be mean about this book and I've wavered over what rating to give, but it just didn't work for me in some big ways.

The good: it has so much heart, and works hard at representation, and there are some really great, really interesting ideas. There's so much obvious passion in this writing and that's wonderful. We need more #ownvoices stories in this area and I want to support this book for that. Also, the food descriptions were amazing, I had so many cravings by proxy; genuinely, that is a talent.

The not-so-good: this should have been through at least 2 more drafts, and it should be at least 2 books. There are too many ideas fighting for space and the writing is almost unbearably choppy; the POV jumps erratically from person to person and it's so confusing. Sometimes a character only got three lines before it was back to other person in the scene and that's not enough - it's jarring, and frankly, it gets annoying really quickly. It also destroys any tension that builds, because the reader is inundated with everyone's thoughts and feelings constantly; there's no time to worry or mull over anything, and even though everyone in this is super dramatic, it was quite boring, because there was no conflict lasting longer than a page.

The book reads like an early draft, and someone at some point really should have told the author that yes, this is good!, but do it again, and again, and make it two separate novels because no-one here is getting the attention they deserve. A superstar violinist who sold her soul to the devil and has to deliver seven souls in trade, picking up a trans runaway violin prodigy for her final soul - fantastic! And she's falling in love with a mother of four and doubting herself? Yes! And then there's a luthier (violin maker) who feels excluded from her family legacy because her father refused to teach a girl the trade - that can go in, it's packing it tight but you can make it work, it's really interesting.

The alien space captain who owns a doughnut shop and has four kids, one of whom is an AI and is wrestling with her humanity, and one who wants to go back and fight in the galactic war that they fled, and also there's an Endplague spreading through the universe... and now she's fallen in love with a human woman? That's a whole other book. It deserves to be a whole other book.

And the ending was complete bobbins.

I feel sad giving it two stars but that's where I'm at.

This book is a DNF @ 47% for me. I think it’s a very unique and ambitious concept for a novel but I don’t think that all the plot elements combine well into a cohesive, coherent, or compelling narrative. The number of POVs in this is also very jarring and makes it difficult to sink into a scene. As a result I’m just a bit disinterested in where the story may end up and what the characters might evolve into. Which is a shame because Katrina seemed like an intriguing protagonist but after 47% I still feel like she’s more of a character sketch than a fully fleshed out person. So even she is not enough of a draw for me to complete this.

Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki, is a very strange book in the best way possible. It’s a story about music, trans individuals, aliens, loneliness, video games, Faustian bargains, San Gabriel Valley, donut shops, and more. It is wholly its own thing, despite the blurb on the back saying it’s Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – two of my favorite books. With its powerful characters, unique premise, and mishmash of subject matters, Uncommon Stars is probably the most original book I have read this year.

Uncommon Stars has a lot going on, but the story essentially revolves around three central protagonists, one primary and two secondaries. Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, is our primary protagonist. She was chased out of her home by a family that doesn’t understand her and finds herself on the street with nothing but her violin to remedy her situation. This is fortunate because one of our secondary protagonists is Shizuka Satomi, the world’s foremost violin teacher.

However, Shizuka has her own story that she is currently living as well. She made a deal with the devil to deliver seven souls of promising violinists to hell in exchange for getting her own music back. If she doesn’t find her seventh soul soon and send them down the river, her music will be lost forever. Finally, we have Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, mother of four, and owner of a famous LA donut shop. Lan is an alien fleeing an intergalactic war and has set up shop on Earth with her family, only to find herself tangled in the life of the lovely Shizuka. How will all these different threads come together to weave a tapestry? You will have to read this delightful book to find out.

Getting down to the brass tacks, this book is wonderful. It has some issues/kinks to work out, but they are easy to overlook with how good the story feels. It’s a very emotional book that will have you crying constantly. Katrina is a powerful protagonist and provides a rare deep dive into what life as a trans individual is like for some. Her story is incredibly sad while also being quite hopeful and warm at the same time. The struggles of both Shizuka and Lan also both add wonderful subplots that make Uncommon Stars just feel bursting with love and emotion. Aoki finds a balance between tragic realities and feel-good stories, stuffing the reader with serotonin while executing on her themes to a high degree.

Chief among the themes is the power of music, which resonated with me on the highest scale. Aoki clearly loves the violin and her affection for it bleeds through the pages and into the reader’s heart. There is also a love of San Gabriel Valley, California, and Asian American culture that wraps you up and pulls you in. There are tons of small vignettes, like one from the POV of a violin repair woman, that is connected to the main story but wholly their own thing. Every mini-story Aoki tells has this gravity to it that just pulls you in so that no matter what she is writing about she manages to make you care about it. It forms this brilliant quilt of stories that surprises and delights – but not every stitching is perfect.

While many of the micro-stories blend together seamlessly, some don’t quite manage to weave themselves into the degree I was hoping for. For example, Lan, our spaceship captain, kinda just feels like an IT team for the more centralized duo of Katrina and Shizuka. Lan’s story is great but doesn’t overlap with the other two protagonists enough. Lan feels like she is really there just to provide agency to move the plot forward at a number of key junctions. In addition, the pacing of the book is a bit uneven. The first half of the book is perfect, but around the midway point, the story starts to drag a lot. It does eventually wrap up with a powerful finale, but there was a chunk of pages that didn’t feel like it added much to the story.

Overall, Light from Uncommon Stars is an easy recommendation for anyone who is looking to feel warm and fuzzy inside or wants to learn to appreciate a whole slew of new subjects. The characters are wonderful, the story is both topical and heartfelt, and Aoki is a very talented writer. The novel’s eclectic nature is one of its greatest strengths, despite the occasional kink, and there is certainly nothing else out there like it.

Stars: 3 out of 5.

I feel bad giving this book less than a stellar rating, because it raises some pretty important issues about inclusion and the casual mistreatment of those who are different. It also talks about trauma and healing and finding your purpose in life. So all the things that should be right up my alley, right? Yes this book left me pretty much cold. I see several problems with the narrative that made it so this book didn't work for me.

First, there is too much going on. There are demons ready to buy your soul and the competitive world of violin music. There are aliens escaping the collapse of a distant civilization. There is a traumatized transgender kid who is trying to find her way in this world that has never showed her kindness. There is the Queen of Hell, who already damned the souls of six of her most brilliant violin students and only need to collect one more to buy back her own.

On each own, all these stories would make a wonderful book. Reading about Katrina finding her own voice and melting the Queen of Hell's heart in the process would have been wonderful. Reading about Lan Thran building a new life on Earth for her family and finding a modicum of happiness. And also realizing that music might be just the thing that could heal the soul of her dying civilization. Or even reading about the strange and cutthroat world of violin competitions and the violin repair shop owner who had the power to repair and exorcise cursed violins. And it is also a story about immigrants and refugees who are trying to rebuild a life on distant shores, as demonstrated by the Asian diaspora in California. 

Unfortunately, mashing them all together into the same narrative did a disservice to all of the stories.

First, it felt like a clash of ideas, but more importantly, there wasn't enough time to develop each story to the extent that it needed to be developed. There were too many characters to keep track of, as a result, almost none of them felt fleshed out. I could honestly say that the only two characters that felt "alive" to me were Katrina and Shirley. Ironic, isn't it, considering Shirley is an AI?

As it stands, I felt like all the stories were underdeveloped then forcibly woven together to create a happy ending. 

Also, I found that for a book that seemingly had such high stakes - the souls of two women in jeopardy, aliens fleeing the destruction of their civilization, etc. I never felt any urgency in the narrative. We are told that the stakes are high, but we aren't shown that. Apart from that last competition where Katrina plays her heart out, I never felt like any of the characters were in real danger. 

It might also be because violence is glossed over or threated with a passing shrug and nothing else in this story. Katrina is raped by her roommate and it is barely mentioned afterwards. I mean, she was betrayed by someone she trusted, yet again, but we will not dwell into that? Or when Lan's son casually kills a civilian and then Lan just disintegrates his friends so that they wouldn't go to the police? There is no aftermath for her for that. Oh, we just killed four people. Oh well, moving on. That felt very callous to me, especially in a story that talks about how music can heal our souls.

The ending is also something I didn't like about this book. I understand the author's desire to end the story on a good note, to create a happy ever after ending. Unfortunately, it cheapens Katrina's sacrifice and self-realization during the violin competition, and also Shizuka's real sacrifice after it, when she chose to forfeit her soul instead of damning Katrina. Shizuka was bound to Hell. That was the choice and the sacrifice she'd willingly made. It would have made for a heart-breaking, but beautiful ending of the book. One that I would have remembered and praised. Getting her out of that bargain by cope out space aliens was wrong, in my opinion. It sends the message that no matter what horrible things you did in your life, you can always escape punishment if you have the right friends. 

I would also argue that the way this book treated Katrina's trauma was very "fairy tale" ending as well. She has severe PTSD from all the abuse she'd suffered from her family and those around her. She has self-loathing and self-image issues. Winning one competition and finding her music won't solve all that. Finding one person who loves and support you helps, but doesn't eliminate the trauma. Katrina needs serious therapy and years of work and recovery to be whole. Yet that part is completely glossed over. 

So yes, I like all the ideas in this book and a deep dive into violins and music was fascinating. I just didn't particularly like how they were blended together in this book. 

PS: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars

Light From Uncommon Stars is a hard book for me to review. It took three tries for me to get into it. Two of those were actually trying to read it, and on the third attempt I tried the audiobook. The audiobook did the trick for allowing me to finish the book. If you’ve tried this book, and put it down, I would recommend giving it another go as an audiobook to see if that format works a bit better for you.

For the story itself, even as an audiobook, I found it disjointed. There is so much crammed into one novel. We have transgender issues and transphobia. Demons, soul collecting, and demonic pacts. Intergalactic space travel, world ending diseases, and food loving aliens. There’s a huge focus on music, specifically violin, and the technical aspects of teaching and learning it.
Somehow, all of these things make up the story. I think that was why I struggled with reading it so much. There is so much to keep track of that seem disconnected until the very end of the book. One or two of these would have made for an excellent book. All together made it feel like it was too much, despite the ending bringing it together.

I do think though, this might be a medium issue. Beyond just having fared better as an audiobook, I think this is meant for the screen. Violin plays such a huge part in all of the aspects of the story, but you can’t hear the descriptions. Major parts of the story feature concerts. I think, for myself at least, if I would watch this and hear the sounds that are supposed to be so spectacular, I would have felt a lot different. For music being what brings so many parts of the book together, without having that connection to hearing it, I couldn’t relate.

Another issue, again a very personal one, was the writing. I don’t do well with poetic, flowery writing. Purple prose feels like it hits a brick wall in my brain, and I just struggle to want to keep reading. If you’re like me, you may struggle with reading this. But that’s a very individual feeling, and for readers who love flowery writing, they won’t have the same problems I did.

All in all, this was an interesting story, but in a lot of ways it didn’t work for me. I think others will get a lot of enjoyment out of it, especially if they don’t mind waiting for that pay off at the end to see everything come together and make a lot more sense.

What if your local donut joint was run by aliens and your favorite musician was backed by the devil himself?

In LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS, Katrina Nguyen, a young trans woman, is a violin virtuoso in the making. But she's forced to (temporarily) abandon her dreams when she runs away from her transphobic, homophobic family. For awhile, her life is no less fraught and unsafe on her own, until she—miraculously—crosses paths with Shizuka Satomi, a world-renowned violin teacher. Sprinkle in Lan Tran, her alien-run donut shop, the threat of interstellar conflict, and a borderline magical luthier, and what follows is a quirky, queer narrative.

Aoki tries to tackle tougher topics, such as racism, trauma, and sexual assault, but the message is often mired by the overstretched, overburdened plot. The characters, all of whom I wanted to know more about, never have time to breathe or truly develop.

But what really put me off was the way Aoki handled point of view, which switches constantly, with no warning, mid-paragraph or mid-conversation. The effect is jarring and difficult to follow.

There's so much I wanted to love here—an intergalactic romance, a deal with the devil, many donuts—and yet at its core, Light From Uncommon Stars is all heart and not much else.

Probably one of the most lyrical scifi books I've ever read. I loved Aoki's writing style - probably making the list of my top faves for style. As we follow Katrina's journey as a young trans girl, we get a lot of vivid details of food, music, smells...I felt like this book tapped into all my senses and lowkey hypnotized me. Well done! Would recommend to friends who are cautiously exploring scifi for the first time or who are generally looking for trans rep in fiction.

What a fabulous book! Sure to be one of my favorites of 2022. Such an empathetic novel that feels emotionally grounded despite its wacky premise-- donut-making aliens, Faustian bargains for violin skill, and all.