soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2021-12-22 09:21 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2021-12-22 09:21 pm
Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki
It's been a couple weeks since I last finished reading a book and already I feel out of practice in articulating my thoughts about a book! Let's see where I can go with this.
This is a book that's hard to categorize. It's set on modern earth, but the characters include: a violin teacher who's made a deal with a demon in order to be able to perform again someday, a family of aliens who are refugees to Earth and run a donut shop, a runaway trans girl trying to find a place where she can be who she is, the heir to a family business who's always been told she has no place in the business because she's a girl, and an AI who struggles to be seen for the person she is.
It's a book that's very interested in exploring womanhood and what it means to be a woman in all its various ways; nearly all the important characters in the book are female, and have widely different experiences of their womanhood.
It's also interested in exploring identity and purpose and drive, what it is to be an outsider, what it means to be family, what you will do for people you love, and what you will do for yourself and your own well being.
And it's very, very interested in making you want to eat ALL THE FOOD while listening to violin music. There is a lot of lovingly described food and music in this book and I want it all.
It's deliciously queer, it's hopeful and fierce and loving, and it FINALLY does that thing I've been wanting all my life which is a book that says "Science fiction or fantasy? Both. Both is good." And then just does that, with zero sense of contradiction or concern.
This is a book that's hard to categorize. It's set on modern earth, but the characters include: a violin teacher who's made a deal with a demon in order to be able to perform again someday, a family of aliens who are refugees to Earth and run a donut shop, a runaway trans girl trying to find a place where she can be who she is, the heir to a family business who's always been told she has no place in the business because she's a girl, and an AI who struggles to be seen for the person she is.
It's a book that's very interested in exploring womanhood and what it means to be a woman in all its various ways; nearly all the important characters in the book are female, and have widely different experiences of their womanhood.
It's also interested in exploring identity and purpose and drive, what it is to be an outsider, what it means to be family, what you will do for people you love, and what you will do for yourself and your own well being.
And it's very, very interested in making you want to eat ALL THE FOOD while listening to violin music. There is a lot of lovingly described food and music in this book and I want it all.
It's deliciously queer, it's hopeful and fierce and loving, and it FINALLY does that thing I've been wanting all my life which is a book that says "Science fiction or fantasy? Both. Both is good." And then just does that, with zero sense of contradiction or concern.
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