Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Light From Uncommon Stars

Good Omens meets Becky Chambers meets Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I loved this book so much. I wish I kept count of how many times I said “this book is so good” out loud. It’s a little bit sci-fi, a little bit fantasy (in the “demons are real” way), and a lot a bit something all its own.

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annabella's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was fun and I feel has such good trans representation. The book made me want to play music again, it was inspiring in that way. I thought it was a nice balance of the main protagonist with the queen of hell’s own story but also kinda ensemble with the doughnut lady, Shirley, etc. I unfortunately dropped off in the last half hour or so but I liked the sense of adventure. And the ‘weird’ off the beaten track places for ‘weird’ people and instruments is nice. Though I’m confused bc I wasn’t listening properly about how it ended for Lucia. I definitely felt the first half of the book where it established characters but you didn’t quite know what ea h person’s motivations were was the strongest bit. I liked how the author wrote to make us very empathetic towards Mrs Satomi and the boundaries of good vs evil were blurred and in fact not even existent.

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danimal_crackers's review against another edition

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Beautiful, but bizarre.

Found the homeless storyline and resortion to prostitution haunting and triggering.

No disrespect to the author, this is an amazing piece of fiction, it just is not for me.

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readingpicnic's review against another edition

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Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

What an incredible book! I was so nervous to read this for a while since it's sci-fi, but that's honestly not the genre of most of the story, so it wasn't hard to understand at all. The writing was incredible, the story had a very satisfying conclusion, and I loved the use of many different perspectives throughout the story, even if we didn't get to stick with some of them too often. I do wish that I had gotten to read more of Tamiko's perspective since she was very interesting and was set up as if she was going to play a major part in the plot, but that kind of fizzled out until the very end of the book when she was briefly mentioned by another character. I would have liked to stick with her perspective a little more because her obsession with Shizuka and creepy way of thinking about her was really attention-grabbing. I also wish I had gotten more of Markus' story, as I found myself questioning why he was in the story at all if he was going to be

put in a stasis and never return as a character. I wish I understood his actions and motivations a bit more before he vanished from the book. I understand that he gave more context on the Empire and the EndPlague, but his character seemed to be very expendable to the story other than that.

I really liked the trans rep in this story with Katrina, and I especially liked how she discussed transition with Shirley in her decision to not alter her body, as well as how she came to love her visibly trans body as the story went on. It didn't emphasize medical transition as necessary to being a trans woman or being trans at all, and I liked how it challenged Shirley's way of thinking of transness, even if she was trying to be helpful. I loved Katrina so much though, and she was definitely my favorite character that I was always rooting for. Shizuka is a little questionable with her actions to me, so I'm still not sure how I feel about her...but she's a complex character for sure and meant to invoke that reaction from the reader, I suppose.

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