Reviews with content warning for Gore - Light from Uncommon Stars

In the dead of night, bruised and with cracked ribs, 17-year-old Katrina Nguyen runs away from home. Her father has beaten his "son" for the last time. With nothing but a bag of clothes, her hormone vials, and her beloved violin, the teenage trans girl catches a bus to Los Angeles, hoping for a better life...

Meanwhile, the esteemed violin teacher Shizuka Satomi is searching for a new student. But Shizuka's intentions are not good. In fact, they are fiendish...

And across town, the donut shop owner Lan Tran is trying to help her family adjust to their new life in this city. After all, she's not native to LA. In fact, she's not even native to this planet...

This was such a weird review to write. There were so many parts of Light From Uncommon Stars that I loved. There were also many parts where I saw room for improvement. I could hardly decide the star rating. I felt like it was a 5-star book and a 3-star book at the same time.

This review contains a lot of criticism. But that's not because I disliked the book. It's because I enjoyed a lot of it, and wish it was even better.

So, what did I enjoy so much about this book?

(1) Asian-American milieu

Our three main characters are all Asian-American. The L.A. neighbourhoods, restaurants, and other locations explored in the novel are also primarily Asian-American. Apart from the fact that it's just plain cool to see this group represented in a book, it opened the door to some mouth-watering food descriptions, discussion of racism and racial stereotypes, and the impact of these characters being pushed into the margins of society.

(2) Katrina, Katrina, Katrina

First, Katrina has a special skill: playing the violin.

I admit it. I'm totally biased. Because I LOVE the trope of the trans person who absorbs themselves in a craft. Many trans people in real life find relief and escape in music, sports, games, fiction, work, etc. It can often be to the point of overachievement. So Katrina finding her escape and her voice in her music was real and relatable.

Second, Katrina wants people to see her as herself, not just as "trans". She wants her audiences to focus on her music, not on who is playing it. Again, super relatable.

Third, all details regarding Katrina's medical transition were accurate. Her experience of dysphoria was also realistic.

I notice that some other reviewers object to the fact that Katrina's dysphoria runs constantly throughout the book, and I agree that this may be difficult for people to read. Nonetheless, her discomfort is an accurate depiction of the early-stage transition experience.

Fourth, Katrina gets a few "princess transformation" scenes in the book. For a trans girl who has never before had the appearance she would prefer, this is absolutely a wish-fulfillment fantasy - and I love it. At the end of the book, there is also

a more permanent transformation: it's implied that Katrina has made use of the Tran family's technology to become as physically female as she would like. This was a very happy ending to give her

and I appreciated it.

Fifth, the author brilliantly emphasizes the pain of misgendering against Katrina by

omitting her old (male) name until the very end of the book. Until this point, the text politely refers to her "deadname" without ever saying the actual name. When the actual name is finally stated, it feels like a slap in the face, completely unfamiliar and not connected to Katrina at all - which is of course how Katrina would have felt when she heard it

. This was really well done and a clever choice by the author.

(3) Realistic depiction of social difficulties trans people experience

Katrina does not effortlessly blend in as a girl right away. Considering that she's only been on hormones for a few months, this felt realistic.

Katrina also has realistic problems relating to this, like trying to find a bathroom to safely use, or even just trying to buy food without being harassed.

I also had to laugh at how real some of these issues were - as in, painfully real. Like when

Katrina is introduced onto the stage in her final performance as "transgender activist Katrina Nguyen" despite the fact that she's not an activist, she's a violinist. I have to wince but also laugh, this is just so real, the way that any publicly known transgender person instantly gets slapped with the label "activist" even when they're just going about their business.
For example, Stef Sanjati (a YouTube makeup artist) was slapped with this label despite the fact that she was just trying to do makeup tutorials and talk about her life. You can see Stef talk about this here

.
Or when

Evan's housemates are patting themselves on the back for being so "tolerant" of Katrina, and for being such enlightened and educated liberals. Yet their actual behaviour - stealing her money, stealing her belongings, removing any semblance of privacy, calling her slurs - is abhorrent

(4) The cut-throat world of elite musicians

I was swept up by the depiction of violin students practising hours every day, desperately seizing every opportunity to advance, prepared to do anything to achieve fame - and I mean anything. The portrayal of concerts, competitions and concertos as putting one's soul and career on the line made for thrilling and high-stakes scenes during the book. Money, legacy, freedom - everything is promised to the one who can succeed as a musician.

This also meshed with the premise that Shizuka is the Queen of Hell - if these are the competitors they're against, of course violinists would be willing to sell their souls to Shizuka. This created a world of music that felt equal parts dangerous and exciting.

(5) All technical notes relating to music

Like the cut-throat world of violinists, all technical comments on the music came off as completely authentic and believable. I especially loved how

the climactic scene of Katrina playing Bartók

was written out, exploring all the musical intricacies of the piece, and I enjoyed listening to the piece at the same time as I read the book.

(6) Satisfying aspects of the ending

There were a couple of things that I absolutely wanted to see happen by the end of the story - and boy, did they happen. In particular, I was delighted to see

a happy ending for Katrina. I also really liked that Shizuka was finally able to win and beat Tremon Philippe because her love for Katrina transformed her - she became a person who was no longer willing to murder

———

So there's no shortage of good things in this book. However, there were also several points which I was less enthusiastic about:

(0) Rapid scene cuts

The scenes in this novel are short, and there are a lot of quick cuts back and forth between two or three different scenes. This was somewhat jarring to read.

(1) Lan Tran

Lan Tran barely interested me at all. I felt very little attachment to her, whereas I was hugely invested in Katrina and Shizuka's part of the story.

Lan often acts coldly, and even

becomes an antagonist to Shizuka and Katrina

during some parts of the story, which made her harder to like. She also remains secretive about her true motivations and goals for a large part of the book, so that it's not really clear what odds are against her or why we should be rooting for her.

(2) Lucia the Luthier

Lucia Mattias occupies an awkward position in the cast of the book. She appears enough that she's almost the fourth main character, except she's not, and she can't be - she doesn't have enough dimension to do it. As a character, she only has one primary conflict (

trying to do her best as a luthier despite her grandfather's sexist treatment and refusal to train her

), and because it never changes or develops until the end of the story, it became repetitive. Phrases like "

Even if she was not a son, she was still a Mattias

" were repeated way too many times.

I liked Lucia and her character arc, I just think she had too much screentime and was stealing the spotlight from our Big Three main characters.

(3) The Lan/Shizuka relationship

Spoiler alert for this section!

I dunno... was it just me? They just didn't seem to have any chemistry.
On their very first meeting we're told they're in crush-at-first-sight, purely based on appearances. It's shallow and comes out of nowhere.
Then, Lan and Shizuka don't even hold hands until pretty much the end of the book, let alone anything else. And they spend sizeable chunks of the book at loggerheads with eachother. Where's the romance?!
There's also a massive age difference between the two characters, discussed below in the content warnings.

(4) The entire sci-fi angle

The book is meant to be in the same sci-fi genre as The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, as indicated by the blurb, but I don't think it succeeded. For starters, the vaguely sci-fi-esque title doesn't refer to any concrete thing in the book, whereas TLWTASAP's title literally describes the plot of the novel. There are no "uncommon stars" in Light From Uncommon Stars, nor is there any light coming from them.

Lan's sci-fi world of aliens and a galactic empire just didn't feel real in the way that Shizuka's Hell did. Lan's family didn't even seem like aliens, more like humans with a palette swap and some under-explained jargon thrown in. For example, it's never mentioned that Lan's name (or any of her family's names) was ever different than the human-sounding name it currently is. The aliens also have the same gender system as humans, they have the same arrangement of limbs as humans, they have the same family unit structures, they have similar numbers of children, their intelligence is comparable, and so on.

I understand that Lan's story represents the experiences of Asian families fleeing from their homes to find refuge in America. However, I felt like this could be better achieved if Lan had fled from Hell or something else related to the Hell/Heaven system already established in Shizuka's backstory.

(5) Limited explanation for Katrina's involvement in
sex work

Spoilers ahead!

At the beginning of the book, Katrina has been earning money via sex work for some time already - possibly for one or two years. It's explained that saving up this money was part of her plan to run away from home.
Despite the discomfort she feels when putting on a "camshow", and the gross comments made by some of her viewers, Katrina also feels somewhat validated by the fact that these strangers are calling her beautiful and desirable.

That's all fine, and (sadly) it's realistic that this was probably one of the most efficient ways for Katrina to make money in her situation. But when this point appears in the story, it's introduced very suddenly and without any backstory explanation of how it started.

How on earth did a 15-year-old Katrina make the leap of signing up for her first camming account? She wouldn't have started hormones at that time, and probably had an even worse body image than she does in the present day. So what on earth possessed her?
I'm not saying it couldn't have happened, but how? How did she first decide to join the 31 per 10,000 Americans who are prostitutes? What's the explanation? What finally pushed her to lie about her age, to click that "Register account" button, and to buy a webcam? Was she being pressured by friends? Did she read on the internet that it was lucrative? Was she just feeling lonely and desperate? And what experience did she have at that first camshow, so that she decided it was worth doing it again despite the gross comments?

The lack of explanation is even bigger for the sex work that Katrina does in person. After all, she was able to do camshows while living at her parents' house, and her risk of danger was so much higher for the in-person work. So what pushed her to arrange that first "date"? How did she learn that this was a thing she could do? Why did she take such a big risk, again lying about her age and going out to meet a stranger? And what happened so that she felt it was worth doing multiple times?

Considering that this part of Katrina's life appears throughout the book, I felt like there just wasn't enough backstory explaining how it first started.

(6) Shizuka is a caring mother figure, except...

Spoilers ahead!

Shizuka is portrayed as a parental figure to Katrina. She repeatedly leaps into action to defend Katrina against homelessness, mistreatment, or even just poor self-image.
But when Shizuka finds out that Katrina is an underage sex worker, does she spring into action to protect her? Nope! She has no problem with Katrina doing this while being a minor who can't legally give consent.
Shizuka was completely unconcerned about Katrina being an underaged sex worker, with not a single thought about Katrina's age even crossing her mind. She had no impulse whatsoever to protect Katrina in this situation. This weirdly neglectful behaviour made me wonder if the author had forgotten that Katrina is underaged while writing this scene.

(7) Shizuka's same-sex attraction is a non-issue?

Spoilers ahead!

Here's something I found weird about the book.
Shizuka is elderly, and the story appears to be set in the present day. Yet Shizuka never has a single thought or experience that reflects the fact that (a) she grew up in a time when homosexuality was even less accepted than it is now, and (b) as far as we know, she has never had a crush on a woman before.

I found it hard to believe that Shizuka had absolutely no reaction to this happening, not even a neutral or positive one. I would've been satisfied if there was a comment like "Shizuka had fallen in love with many women over the years", or "Shizuka was surprised to feel this way about another woman for the first time", or anything like that. But Shizuka never showed any awareness that being same-sex attracted is unusual.

I can't know for sure, but I'm guessing this is because the author was trying to give the story a similar vibe to The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, where the lesbian romance is treated as totally normal and nobody considers it unusual. But Light From Uncommon Stars has a different setting (present-day Earth, not futuristic space), so this doesn't make sense.

Incidentally, Lan never thinks about this point either. But I can believe that she wouldn't necessarily think about it, because she's depicted as socially unaware and uninformed about Earthly culture. We don't know what her alien species thinks of gay people, so maybe they aren't bothered by that. For Shizuka, however, this lack of comment didn't make sense.

(8) Almost all adult male characters are jerks

The only positively-portrayed male characters are children, or extremely minor background characters. Every other male character is a jerk. For example:

- Katrina's father beats her to the point of bruises and cracked ribs.
- Katrina's male camshow patrons are portrayed as leering fools who she's squeezing for money.
- Tremon Philippe is a literal demon, described as resembling a toad.
- Lucia's grandfather was cruel and sexist.
- The violin repair guy was an elitist jerk.
- The pawn shop owner was an extortionist.
- Evan was an inconsiderate ass and a rapist.
- Lan Tran's ex-husband was a military stooge.
- Harlene (sp?) Ferreira's boyfriend was rude and homophobic.
- Lan Tran's teenage son violently murders two people in a fit of rage.
- The Chinese contest sponsor guy sexually harasses Katrina.

This was a bit sad, and I wondered what kind of experiences the author had to write all this.

(9) Questionable aspects of the ending

Spoilers ahead!

Katrina gets a happy ending in this novel, and I'm all in favour of that. However, I also had a few issues with the ending.

Firstly, Shizuka never atones for her crimes. Remember, she didn't just murder six people; she sent them to hell where they would suffer in eternal torment! But not only does she never express regret for what she did, she goes off to live happily ever after in space with Lan.

Secondly, there is no revenge, punishment, or justice of any kind against Evan, who rapes Katrina near the start of the book. He just gets off scot-free. Given that Shizuka becomes a protective parental figure to Katrina, I wish we had gotten to see her enact some kind of hellish retribution against Evan.

Thirdly, just before her final performance in a violin contest, Katrina is suddenly molested by the contest sponsor. He then leaves.
However, Katrina isn't left reeling from this horrible event, or feeling dirty, or flashing back to Evan's rape, or simply unsure whether to laugh or cry. No, she just smirks and mentally insults the sponsor:
> Katrina smirked. You could give him all the money and power in the world, but a [expletive] was still a [expletive].
Not only that, but at the end of the book it's revealed that she's entered into some kind of sugar daddy arrangement with him. What?! This was such a bizarre way for Katrina to react.

Conclusion

So that was a lot of complaining, huh? Yet despite all that, I definitely enjoyed the story because I liked Katrina's character so much. I was 100% invested in her success and happiness and wanted to see it all to the end. Shizuka's arc was also great, and I was totally swept up in the musical world created by these two characters. I just wish the book had focused on this point, rather than trying to do so many other things at the same time (the sci-fi angle, Lucia's family, the Tran family, etc).

Overall, I think the book is worth a read, but you might want to skim-read the parts with Lan Tran and Lucia Mattias, or any other aspects you find troublesome.

Content Warnings

julianship's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful medium-paced

Leaving off a star rating right now. I was really excited for this book, but unfortunately it didn't thrill me. It has way too many plotlines, and Aoki also switches POVs frenetically, sometimes after only a paragraph. This really undercuts any sense of tension, so I found it hard to believe in the (galactic and soul-wrenching!) stakes. There are some pretty jarring tone shifts as well.

It also means we don't spend enough time with the characters to really develop them emotionally. I still don't have a great sense of who Katrina is apart from the things that have happened to her, which is a real shame because she has the potential to be really interesting.

I also think it's worth a content warning that while this book has an ultimately hopeful tone, it spends a LOT of time in Katrina's head as she deals with the aftermath of transphobic abuse from her parents and also, apparently, basically every person she's ever met, including sex work clients and so-called friends. There's a ton of internalized stuff and the book spends a lot of time with it, which can feel kind of jarring when the other subplots are about... donuts? There's also an onscreen rape scene and a very graphic murder (the murder is not related to Katrina's subplot.)

I guess this book just felt underdeveloped to me. To follow the donut metaphor, the ingredients were there, but it was underproofed and then covered in a lot of different kinds of sprinkles.

Content Warnings

troisha's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

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