I was so excited to read this book, described as Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship, and donuts?? Yes please!

What I loved: the story’s focus on strong women. I loved the theme of overcoming life’s challenges, helping other people, defying expectations, found family, and second chances. The world-building was also very creative.

What I didn’t love: I never fully fell into the rhythm of the story. The perspective bounced around a lot; the chapters were very short and choppy. I would have loved to spend time with just one perspective per chapter; all the back-and-forth was very confusing and disorienting. This format seems like it would be a huge challenge for audiobook listeners, as well. It’s also possible there was a bit too much going on: we had demons, aliens, and fully sentient AI coexisting in a human world complete with messy human problems like greed and transphobia, as well as alien problems like the end plague.

At the end of the day, I liked a lot of things about this book but I didn't love it.

Synopsis: Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

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.

Rating: Light from Uncommon Stars – 9.0/10
-Andrew

An absolute delight. Give this one to fans of Becky Chambers. A recommended purchase for collections where quirky sci fi is popular.

Light From Uncommon Stars is an original book, that's for sure. It merges lots of different elements together, elements that should not work together, but somehow they actually do.

Shizuka Satomi is a violin teacher who's looking for her next student so that she can finally end her deal with the devil. But things get complicated when she decides to teach Katrina, a transgender girl who escaped her family home because of the abuse she was facing. Katrina's mesmerizing talent impresses Shizuka and that's why she decides to take her on as a student and support her every step of the way. In the meantime Shizuka is also dealing with the blossoming feelings she has for Lan, a woman who has a donut shop and who's actually an alien refugee who fled to earth with her whole family.

My favourite parts were definitely the ones about music, especially when Katrina shares her knowledge with Shizuka and shows her how she can play music from video games or anime. Their practice sessions were truly mesmerizing to read and they were written so beautifully.
Even though the space aspect sounded interesting at first, I must admit I lost interest pretty quickly, maybe because I felt like it didn't really add anything meaningful to the storyline.

Overall I felt like the book was progressing way too slowly for my taste which is something I did not enjoy.

This is definitely one of a kind book and if the plot sounds like something you might enjoy, I totally suggest you give this a try!

Beaten and bruised by her brutal father because she is trans, Katrina Nguyen, grabs her escape bag and takes off to LA. Arrangements to stay with a friend collapse leaving her wounded with her beloved violin stolen. Shizuka Satomi, is looking for a new violin student. She's trained six of the most gifted violin prodigies of the last several decades but her deal with the devil requires one more before February. After hearing Katrina who is mostly self taught, play her violin in a park, she later realizes she wants her to be her next pupil but she has no way to find her except for visiting the park over and over hoping she will return. Lan Tran, a single mom with four kids and the captain of a space ship from a distant galaxy, owns a doughnut shop where Shizuka visits one day when desperate for a bathroom. They become friends and more. This amazing tale is one of the best books of the year and will hopefully win awards and the recognition it deserves . Aoki, has synergistically combined extremely disparate characters and themes and created a masterpiece of kindness. It makes me want to eat doughnuts and take up the violin. I loved the Star Trek references in this joyful book that kept me on the edge of my seat trying to guess how things could ever possibly come out well.

I received an ARC from net galley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm sure this book will connect really strongly with many readers due to the unique concept and emotional impacts. Unfortunately, the writing style didn't work for me, feeling distractingly disjointed.

A hugely impressive debut from Aoki, blending space opera and magic and donuts and music -- there's so much here that any synopsizing will make a reader raise an eyebrow and even the jacket copy is a bit "what? wait, how?" but to my great relief, it never *felt* like that in the reading. Aoki blends all of these things and then crisps them up like... well, like the perfect donut. Except the book is way deeper than any donut analogy could ever imply.

A riveting and vivid science fiction (and musical soul-fiction) story. I really enjoyed the multiple storylines and the way they converged on each other, though I will quibble with the description given by the publisher -- this novel is not as lighthearted as advertised. It's not without humor or kindness, but it reflects a world that is harsh and unrelenting. It deals with souls being consigned to hell and also dwells on identity and parenthood, finding unexpected love in later years, and the struggles of being queer and trans (and voiceless) in an inhospitable world (sadly, this inhospitable world is exactly like the one we currently live in). The events take place over the course of a summer and autumn and are beautifully supported by a colorful cast of characters: some alien, some human, and all of them outcasts.

The geographic setting is also supported by descriptions of the surrounding immigrant communities and their food. I really enjoyed these elements, because they gave shape and structure to a world that is constantly in flux. It was a great reflection of the events unfolding for the characters: violinists and luthiers, doughnut makers and rocket scientists, all of them finding their voices.

I will note that there are several brief scenes of sexual assault, as well as sex work performed both consensually and under duress. These scenes are non-explicit and sympathetic, and they do move the plot forward; they're also something I should have expected in a novel that has a young transwoman of color who flees an abusive home situation. Whenever these moments occured, I felt inescapably sad for the people who have grappled with these things in nonfictional settings. Aoki is gentle with depictions of gender dysphoria and euphoria, in case that's a content note readers would like to be aware of.

All in all, it's a compelling novel. My favorite moments were the ones that occurred outside of the main action but still moved the plot forward -- Aoki's writing felt the strongest when it was portraying these hidden, domestic moments that lay the groundwork of bigger events. I'm rating it four stars instead of 3 (really 3.5) because I look forward to seeing more stories like this in science fiction, and to hearing from more voices that might otherwise have been silenced.

Light From Uncommon Stars was a bizarre, beautiful, bewildering read. There were so many pieces that were not to my taste, so many elements in which I had zero interest, and yet, as a whole, I found it captivating. Above all else, even if the emotions it evoked were too often rage and sadness, Ryka Aoki had me emotionally invested in Katrina's fate, so much so that I had to keep reading.

There's a lot going on here, far too much to boil down into a simple synopsis, but let me touch on the high points. It's a story of queer identities and queer love, with the identity of Katrina Nguyen (transgender violin prodigy) taking precedence over the love affair between Shizuka Satomi (demonically cursed violin teacher) and Lan Tran (alien manager of a donut shop). It's a story about the difference between technical perfection and inspired imperfection, whether that be in music, cooking, or living. It's a story about the families we're born into versus those we choose (or which choose us). It's also a story about death and change versus mortality and stagnation, and those themes become increasingly important as we get closer to the end.

I'm not one for trigger warnings, but there's a TON of misgendering, deadnaming, transphobic slurs, and all-around transphobic hate within this story - and that's where my rage came in. I'd hoped it would get better, that Katrina's life would get better, but Aoki doubles down on allowing characters to spew hatred in the final arc of the book, forcing a make-or-break moment as we push towards resolution. It's a queer-positive story, and Aoki clearly has a lot of love and compassion for Katrina, but the ugliness of the world got too much for me on more than one occasion. I will say, however, I was relieved by the fact that Katrina's transgender identity was never magically resolved through demonic deals or alien technology, as there were times I feared the story was going there.

Narratively, Light From Uncommon Stars is told in brief snippets, leaping back-and-forth between POVs, and that was a major challenge for me. I find those hard stops and sudden shifts take me out of the story, keep me at arm's length, and if it weren't for being so invested in Katrina as a character, I likely would have DNF'd this early on. In terms of genre, I loved the urban fantasy and romance vibes, but I struggled with the sci-fi aspects. I get why they were there and what Aoki was doing with them thematically, but the whole starship/stargate donut shop idea was rather absurd and often tiresome.

So, hardly my favorite read of the year, but Light From Uncommon Stars overcame a lot of negatives to keep me reading through to the end. It lost me a bit there, as the tone, telling, and pacing suddenly jumped from impulse to warp drive, with too many twists and climaxes bogging down the narrative, but I came away satisfied with Katrina's arc, and that was really all that mattered.

When a book makes you cry three times, you know it's good. I wasn't sure what to expect out of this book, but it sure as hell wasn't mild emotional destruction and a need for hugs and donuts. This book is fantastical and beautiful and all things bright and beautiful and strange. I'm not sure how to verbalize my love for it, if I'm being completely honest. It balances multiple POVs and plotlines easily, and really captures a lot of emotion in the way it's written. This book has such a special place in my heart. Thank you to Ryka Aoki and NetGalley for providing me with an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Light From Uncommon Stars is wild and eccentric ride, tying together three women on a journey to find out what art, friendship, and family might mean. Shizuka Satomi has made a deal with a demon. She has forty-nine years to send seven souls to hell, which she does in the form of her famous, virtuosic violin students. She's delivered six, and is on the look out for her seventh and final student and soul. Katrina Nguyen is on the run from an abusive home situation because she is transgender. A talented musician, she catches the attention Shizuka. But can Shizuka go through with the deal? All the while, Shizuka must confront her own feelings for Lan Tran, a space captain hiding out from a galactic mess off planet with her own family behind the storefront of a popular roadside donut shop.

All the ingredients were here for a compelling read for me. Unique characters, vivid settings, deals with the Devil (haha). I really appreciate Aoki's work to introduce transgender and Asian voices into the sci-fi world when they are so underrepresented. She does this with grace and sensitivity, not shying away from difficult themes like sex work, miscarriage, and mental illness.

That being said, something about Aoki's writing just fell flat for me. I'm not sure if she really succeeds in tonally tying together the narratives of the three protagonists, and I felt like I was being told what was happening and how the characters were reacting instead of being immersed in the world of the story. The prose was a bit of a slog.

Three stars for a clever story and the important representation, but all in all, not my favorite book.

This book is full of so many wonderful characters, storylines, music, and food that it's almost dizzying. Somehow, Aoki beautifully pulls together a bizarre and busy plot into an engrossing, heartwarming read. Shizuka Satomi, known as the "Queen of Hell", made a deal with a demon to deliver seven souls of great violinists to him in order to save her own soul and recover her music, which has been lost to her. She's done her duty with six previous musicians, but when she encounters runaway Katrina, a transgender girl, something in Katrina's music draws her in despite Katrina's lack of training. Throw in a family of space aliens running a donut shop, a single mother trying to run her family's violin shop, and many scenes that take place in vibrant restaurant settings, and somehow it all comes together into what is one of my favorite books of the year so far. Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Ryka Aoki for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is a book about a transgender girl escaping an abusive home. This is a story about a woman who made a bad deal with a demon. This is a story about aliens, crossing space and time to protect their family. This story is all these things, and somehow more. It is an ode to compassion, both innate and learned. It is a journey of ridding oneself of what others say you cannot be. It is a tale of love and family, and how music might just save us all. Both beautiful and painful in parts (tw for physical and emotional abuse, as well as rape), Aoki has managed to weave together these lives in a way that touched me far more than I had anticipated. Highly recommended.

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” is SUCH a good way to describe this book. I loved it. It’s absolutely wild: so creative, so heart filling, so beautifully written.

Ryka Aoki has written a beautiful portrait of a young trans women finding her way in a harsh world. Despite the horrors she so brutally details, this is overwhelmingly a story of hope.

It feels like YA but because it’s deeply truthful about the common horrors of being a trans youth in America (physical violence from “friends” and family, sex work to survive, prejudice from strangers, online bullying) this one belongs squarely in upper YA.

At first glance, this book sounds like too much: refugee aliens, damned violinists, greedy demons and tragic teens. But it’s exactly enough. It tackles anti-Asian hate but puts a celebration of Asian cultures, peoples and foods to the front. It gazes unflinchingly (although, reader, you’re going to flinch) at the struggles of trans teens but the liberation of being loved for who you are, as you are is what sticks with you. It allows parents to be their imperfect selves, while showing what it means to love your family just as they are, whether that family is born, made or chosen. It doesn’t shy away from the either cruelty or the joy of life

It’s a beautiful story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor books and Ryka Aoki for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Light From Uncommon Stars
by Ryka Aoki

Well, this was one peculiar book and I like peculiar! It had space people, a demon, cursed objects, a trans on the run, a pair of women who fall in love, and donuts! But there was also violent abuse, sexual assault, rape, racism, aggression towards LGBTQ groups, and more. This is a bold book that takes on abuse, sexual assault, Trans and gay issues, and racism against Asians. I think maybe it just had too much in it or needed editing.

Katrina is a trans that left her abusive home with her violin. She meets a teacher that is famous for her violin. (And all her previous students dying!) She agrees to teach her. That teacher meets a space woman that runs a donut shop. That donut shop's daughter is really a hologram that is made from the essence of a miscarriage and a computer program. These are some of the strange characters in the story!

The story is okay but dwells way to much on Katrina's feeling of inadequacy. The book TELLS us repeatedly! I felt like it was covered extensively on each page! It doesn't show us! This is the way of the whole book.

I don't regret reading the book but I feel someone READ me a folktale. I didn't feel like I was immersed in a book. I didn't really feel connected to any of the characters. I had no emotions throughout except disgust at times. To me, this was not a normal TOR book. TOR has always been my go-to Publisher for great books!

I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this strange book.

Content warnings: Transphobia; parental and familial abuse, including mental, physical, and sexual; rape and sexual assault; depiction of consensual and non-consensual sex work; racism; mentions of self-harm and suicide.

When I saw this being compared to Good Omens and Becky Chambers, I was definitely intrigued. I’ve been burned by comp titles so many times, but I think Light from Uncommon Stars does have a kinship with them; not in style or subject, exactly, but in a sense of optimism and care for humanity. I’m actually not sure how to write this review, as there seem to be several layers to this book: on the one hand, you have the story as described, of Shizuka Satomi taking in a young violin prodigy with the aim of exchanging her soul for freedom, but on the other hand, you have a dreamy, choppy narrative that looks at everything from the journey of self-belief for a young trans girl, to refugee aliens running a doughnut shop, to the power of music to move people’s emotions and memories, to the dangers of trusting too much in family legacies. There’s quite a stonking list of content warnings up there, but the book handles each issue sensitively and uses them in ways that make each character feel very human.

The story is told in snatches rather than in one long narrative, with line breaks and point-of-view switches every few paragraphs. I don’t know how this would appear on the printed page, but in my ebook copy it was easy enough to get used to, and gave an almost dream-like quality to the story. It made me turn the pages very quickly, and blurred the passing of time – the book takes place over a year, but that year slips away from you just as it does the characters, which is clever. The narrative seems to simultaneously be very personal and have a level of objective detachment, which reminded me a bit of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, another book that sits between the surreal and the mundane, and has a similar bittersweet view of humanity. That isn’t to say that the detachment stops this from being a very emotional and heartfelt read, though; it’s a style that allows for some deep dives into the personal histories of the characters in a way a more straightforward narrative might not. There’s also plenty of humour to lighten things up, particularly around the alien characters and their understanding of humanity, and Shizuka’s love of Star Trek – I wish we’d had even more of this, as those were my favourite bits!

There are dozens of characters in this book, and part of the power of it is that each obviously has their own rich inner life; we get to know several well, but the story centres on Katrina, the violin prodigy, Shizuka, famous violin teacher and secret soul-seller, and Lan, the mother of an alien family. All three women are queer, but while that’s important to their stories, it’s by no means the only thing about them, which is something that’s really well handled and makes them feel very believable. That being said, this is a story with strong, powerful trans rep, and it doesn’t shy away from the dark or the light aspects of Katrina’s experience. It can be hard reading at times, as Katrina faces a lot of transphobia on-page and in her backstory, but ultimately this is an optimistic story, and the acceptance she finds both from others and herself is lovely. I really liked Charlie Jane Anders’s review, if you’re looking for an own voices take on the rep.

If, like most of Book Twitter, you enjoy descriptive food writing, you’ll adore the huge attention to detail paid to the variety of meals here; if, like me, you really don’t particularly care for it, you might find it a bit tedious. I know, I know, I’m the weird one for not revelling in pages of dish descriptions. It did make me want doughnuts, but pretty much just seeing the word will! I’m also going to say that I ran into a little bit of the same trouble I had with A Song for a New Day, which is that I don’t find myself transported by descriptions of music being played (more details here), so I felt like I was missing something in those scenes. Again, if you do love that kind of thing, then there is plenty of it here and it’s clearly been written with a huge amount of love and care. I have next to no knowledge of the violin world, and I followed everything, so it’s not that you need prior in-depth knowledge, it’s just whether it touches you, I suppose. If it doesn’t, there’s still plenty to love!

Something about this book reminded me a little of Matt Haig’s early fiction; his books The Radleys and The Humans have a similar kind of outsiders-looking-at-humanity feel. I’m not saying this is derivative, at all – it’s not – but it has that same quality of feeling literary even though it’s deeply SFF. Ultimately for me, this philosophical bent kept me at arm’s length from connecting with it whole-heartedly. I just couldn’t quite get swept away in the characters because I felt like I was expected to feel emotional about it – it’s so obviously written to be contemplative and heartwarming, and that has the desired effect, but I couldn’t help but feel a little manipulated, rather than coming by the feelings organically. It’s hard to express exactly what I mean, but even with my failure to get completely emotionally invested, I still think this is a powerful, hopeful piece of literature that will have great impact.

There’s no doubt this is going to be a huge hit with Becky Chambers fans, or anyone looking for a really thoughtful piece of speculative fiction that falls on the more quirky, literary end of things. It’s sweet and lovely – but make sure you have doughnuts on hand! Four out of five cats.

Light From Uncommon Stars is a poetic science fiction novel that focuses on identity, music, and finding your home.

Shizuka Satomi is known as the Queen of Hell in the violin world, and with a Faustian deal to trade 7 souls in exchange for her own, the moniker isn't wrong. Katrina Nguyen just wants to find a safe place. She escapes from home (& her father), Katrina catches the attention of the Queen of Hell, who just needs one more soul. Meanwhile Lan Tran is running Starrgate Donuts with her 4 kids. As an intergalactic refugee and former starship captain, Lan just wants to ensure her family's safety. However, when Shizuka enters Starrgate Donut, Lan and Shizuka find something unexpected: each other.

I really enjoyed this novel. The way music is described in Light from Uncommon Stars is beautiful - I had to look up the mentioned violin pieces. Light from Uncommon Stars is also heartbreaking, especially when it came to Katrina's experiences as a transgender teenager.

The relationships in this novel are really great! I loved watching the characters interact with each other. Honestly, the side cast is just as great as the main trio.

All in all, this was a poignant novel that captured music, (found) family, and finding yourself. Light from Uncommon Stars contains some of the best descriptions of music that I have ever read, as well as an engaging story. Ryka Aoki is a novelist to watch, and I am really looking forward to seeing what she writes next!

Many thanks to Tor Books and NetGalley for this eARC! I am really grateful for the opportunity to read Light from Uncommon Stars before the release date!

CW: transphobia, deadnaming, homophobia, sexual harassment

I REALLY wanted to like this but alas, that was not the case. I think my biggest problem with this novel was that it very much read like a debut novel. I found the writing very plain and simplistic, often to the point that it made these adult characters' thoughts and emotions sound very juvenile. I would've liked to see more complexity, especially since writing is, in the end, what lends characters their personality and substance. It wasn't simply a matter of the writing being not flowery or beautiful enough, but rather that the writing was actively hindering the story, making it feel very plain, despite the not-at-all-plain subject matter. There was a lot of potential here, and I'd be interested in checking out another novel from Ryka Aoki, but this one just wasn't the one for me, unfortunately.

This is a wonderful sci fi story of a trans girl. The book is like a balm on the hurt that trans people have to face daily. It was a thrilling read.

4.5 stars

CW: transphobia, misgendering, dead-naming

I really enjoyed this book! It has a unique premise, and it’s not often (ever?) that I read a sci-fi book with aliens in it that doesn’t take place in space.
The characters were lovely and even though I know nothing about violins, I didn’t have to in order to understand what was happening in the story. I even YouTubed Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin!