This is perhaps one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.
Hard stop.
I had a few hurdles to overcome early on (was okay with demons, then we got a donut-slinging starship captain and I absolutely exclaimed “oh c'mon” while reading), but I'm thrilled to have continued on.
If I had to sum this book up, it would be that it's a story about very specific outsiders who face systemic, western-society induced hurdles that prevent them from being their true selves. While there is a literal Faustian bargain here, most of the characters are living in the same reality. One where demons are making deals with musicians for souls, starship captains from a far off empire are trying too hard to be perfect to gain acceptance, a luthier grapples with her family's generational misogyny and a trans runaway faces nonstop discrimination and somehow the core conceit for this entire story is the game UnderTale.
There's a lot to digest here.
What happens, though, is we get to see how love, encouragement and community can help. Maybe it can't heal these wounds and make the awful people go away, just like it can't make the mysterious “EndPlague” the empire faces stop, but by sharing beauty and love, in this book's case through music, it can reach other people and help them feel like they aren't alone.
Isn't that the point of art? I know it always was for me.
I can't recommend this book enough.