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A review by kell_xavi
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
adventurous
hopeful
slow-paced
2.5
I’ve been meaning to read Ryka Aoki since I heard her on a panel 6 or 8 years ago, and was interested in the potential story in this book. Unfortunately, Light from Uncommon Stars is an odd combination of factors that squirms out from its own internal logic, borrows from demonic deals and starship tales done elsewhere, better, and slows to dragging around Katrina’s struggles with identity and prejudice. Here’s what was good: the food, every description and scene of restaurant patrons, comfort eats, new flavours, neighbours’ fruit trees. Allusions to real music, performance details, movement of sounds, composers’ histories, and audience impressions. Shirley, and her sibling dynamic with Katrina. A fictionalized version of a very real type of selfish, white, queer community.
The rest was disappointing. Katrina was so much a set of ideas about transness, trauma and self-hatred that morphs into self-love, but I didn’t get a deeper sense of who she was or the ways in which she was queer beyond the body she tries to erase. Despite gestures to the inspirational growth of the artist, the family, impressions of all the characters are blunted.
The rest was disappointing. Katrina was so much a set of ideas about transness, trauma and self-hatred that morphs into self-love, but I didn’t get a deeper sense of who she was or the ways in which she was queer beyond the body she tries to erase. Despite gestures to the inspirational growth of the artist, the family, impressions of all the characters are blunted.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, and Transphobia
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Homophobia, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming, Child death, Murder, Racial slurs, and War