Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

42 reviews

madalynn_owens's review

adventurous emotional hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

this was a very different and interesting story filled with a wide array of unique characters. It was a little slow at times and I didn’t love the ending but transported me to a new world. And now I want a donut!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, War, Panic attacks/disorders, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Body shaming

internationalreads's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Rape, Transphobia, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

michellegaudet's review against another edition

dark funny hopeful mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Homophobia, Hate crime, and Transphobia

winter_is_reading's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

Excellent audiobook too. I’ll be recommending this to friends, family, and those that love music, violins, video games, Southern California, sci-fi twists, and Asian American, transgender, and Sapphic stories.

To trans pain and trans triumph, to violence and violins, to classical Bartok and 8 bit Undertale. This book has me stopping, reflecting, smiling, and crying. It’s not a sad book, but the beautiful introspection had me tearing up when I least expected it.

There are heavy themes in this book. There’s a lot of transphobia and violence against trans women. There’s anti-Asian racism, sexism, flashbacks to child abuse, and mentions of sex work and rape. But again, I wouldn’t say this is a sad book. There’s a lot of triumph and beauty despite the evils of men. 

I can’t recommend this book enough. 

Angst: 4/5
Spice: no spice, but there’s a darling romance

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Gaslighting, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Child abuse, Dysphoria, and Hate crime

watervixxen's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

5.0

Absolutely beautiful story that centers Queer love and hope. It also shows some of the darker, unfortunately very real reactions society has towards Trans folxs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Sexual violence, and Hate crime

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, and Deadnaming

laguerrelewis's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

“When two violins are placed in a room if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note”
—Say Yes, Andrea Gibson

Light From Uncommon Stars is difficult to distill. A plot synopsis often leaves your audience thinking “how does that fit together?” This is actually Stars’ greatest strength—it contains multitudes, and its insight is fathomless. Like Gibson says in the poem quoted above, Ryka Aoki is able to play the exact chords that resonate and sound in the reader. The result is a moving and incredibly affecting story of legacy, love, connection, community, mistakes, the condition of being alive, and the connective power of music and donuts. These words will stay with me for years to come. Keep tissues on hand, and do not read this book hungry.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Sexual harassment, Violence, Misogyny, Blood, Death, Dysphoria, Sexual content, War, Grief, Hate crime, Murder, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Outing, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Deadnaming, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, and Medical content

scmiller's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Bullying, Dysphoria, Body shaming, Transphobia, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Racism, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Rape, Blood, Grief, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, and Murder

Minor: Ableism, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, and Gore

spadedigsbutts's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

 I really really wanted to like this book. Trans coming of age story combined with devil deals, older Sapphic romance, and science fiction magic? Absolutely sounded like my cup of tea, unfortunately the negatives just personally outweighed the positives for me. 

On a technical level, the book is a huge mix. Sometimes parts are written in the most lovely way with pretty language and clever witticisms, but other times I am struggling to even understand what some sentences mean and having to reread entire paragraphs over and over. The latter happened more for me than the former unfortunately, and the issue was exacerbated by the fact that about every few paragraphs there is a POV shift, so we rarely spend much time with any one character. As a result, we only have strong characterization for a handful of characters as we ping-pong between the "main" protagonists and multiple secondary characters without much relevance. The back-of-the-book blurb for the novel is a bit misleading, because it would make you think we have three protagonists, but we actually have more like 4 as there is a violin repair woman who gets an entire story arc and multiple chapter appearances, yet only interacts with the main three maybe twice? This leads into another major technical issues, which is if you are not good at remembering names (like me), this will be an awful experience for you. Almost every character introduced, no matter how minor, is often introduced with a full first and last name, and description, implying they will be important and recurring, only for them to drop off the face of the earth. Except when they don't and they reappear several chapters later and you, having by that point been trained to ignore most named characters, you have to flip back to the beginning to remember who that was. For context on how bad it gets with the names, I was live-tweeting my friend about my reading experience and by page 50 about 35-36 individual names had been introduced. If these are the sorts of technical issues that don't bother you as much, definitely dive in, but for me it was personally super distracting.

Speaking on the story of the book, it's hard to really call it a story. It would be easier to call it a slice of life with fantastical elements and characters interacting until the last fourth of the book where more of a plot with the central protagonist, Katarina, comes up and we get some much needed payoff to her and Shizuka's arcs. If there is anything to say about this book, it is that almost everything with Katarina and Shizuka is excellent!! I loved seeing Katarina come into her own and gain confidence under the protection of her strong and loving mentor figure. While the book never once made me believe Shizuka would sacrifice Katarina, the inherent drama of the possibility and what they're willing to do for each other is great! If this book had just been about them and condensed to cut the many many side characters I would have rated it like a 4 minimum. Even if you don't read the whole book, read Katarina's stuff!! It's really good!! Unfortunately the biggest weakness of the book is Shizuka's love interest, the space refuge Lan, who just constantly feels out of place in the book. I wouldn't contribute this lack of cohesion to the fact everything else in the book is mundane or magical and Lan's parts of the story are super sci-fi, as I've seen other books do similar successfully, but that she never quite gets integrated into any one character's life. Even Shizuka, who is Lan's romantic interest, just has entire scenes and arcs going on independent of her to the point I forget Lan exists until she appears. Lan comes with a number of plot points and character arcs that unfortunately just flat out don't get a resolution, like with her son who

literally murders two people, is put into stasis, and is then never once brought up again.

Because there's just so many characters and things going on, Lan just doesn't really get the development she needs and it hurts the book a lot as so many chapters are dedicated to her and her family. 

Anyways, if none of these are deal breakers for you, go read it!! Katarina's trans coming-of-age story is really good!! Unfortunately everything surrounding it is just very messy and underwritten and I wish i could have liked it more. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Murder, Sexism, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Deadnaming, Bullying, Body shaming, Transphobia, and Outing

Moderate: Abandonment, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Colonisation, Alcohol, Child death, Deportation, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Death, Classism, and Murder

Minor: War and Confinement

This book absolutely digs and then dwells in real-world racism, transphobia, and other bigotries. If you want more of an escapist trans story without real-world bigotries, absolutely put this one down. If you're looking for more cathartic real-world brutal depictions of transphobia, etc. you might like this.

theirgracegrace's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Light From Uncommon Stars is a beautiful symphony from start to finish. Every pastiche-style chapter slowly develops the relationship between its three main characters: Shizuka Satomi, a violin teacher who needs to sacrifice one more student to Hell to be able to play again; Katrina Nguyen, a transgender woman escaping her transphobic and abusive family only to become Satomi's student; and Lan Tran, an alien refugee fleeing a galactic war with her family by pretending to be the owners of a donut shop. The prose reveals and hides at every moment, building to a powerful concert the night before Satomi's contract with Hell is up, and either she or Katrina has to die. The ending completely surprises and lends itself well to the book's themes of being oneself and sharing one's soul with the universe to stave off apathy and hate. Incredible book that I've recommended to everyone already!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Stalking, Violence, Bullying, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Self harm, Transphobia, Cursing, Death, Dysphoria, Kidnapping, Rape, Deadnaming, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Blood, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

nataliation's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, War, Hate crime, Self harm, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Dysphoria, and Deadnaming