Light From Uncommon Stars

Shizuka Satomi has made a deal with the devil: she must train 7 souls in the way of the violin and then sacrifice them in order to save her soul and get her music back. However, when she finds her 7th student, Katrina, she realizes that this may be harder than she imagined. Katrina, a trans woman who has run away from home, is homeless and desperate. Shizuka's offer to teach her violin while providing housing and food seems too good to be true, but she readily accepts. Lan, a woman from a different planet, has set up shop in a donut shop nearby. These 3 women's lives entangle, and they must work together to overcome their fears and live.

This book is beautiful. At the beginning, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The story telling is a little confusing. When the POV changes in the audiobook, there is typically no pause or anything to indicate it has changed and the reader has to figure it out. At first, this made everything a little confusing, but as you get to know the characters, you can easily keep up with the changes. After I started to pick up on what this story was about, I fell in love. The characters are all so complex and damaged in a way that felt so real. They all had their own demons, literally and figuratively, that they had to deal with from their pasts and their present, and watching these characters help each other through life felt so rewarding. This book tackles very heavy themes, including racism, transphobia, queerphobia, etc., but Aoki did a great job of balancing these themes with touching moments.

I recommend this book to anyone. It was a lovely, fun, dark story about survival in a world that doesn't want you to survive.

TW: anxiety, deadnaming, domestic abuse, gun violence, homophobia, mentions of war (intergalactic), misgendering, partental physical abuse, racism, rape, self harm, sexual abuse, slut-shaming, suicidal thoughts, transphobia