Light From Uncommon Stars

a beautiful story of defiant joy and love of the gifts of art and other kinds of creation. a rich homage to its setting and all of its diverse histories. an unlikely found family, if you don't think about it too hard. at times, characters and their stories felt over-dense or, no pun intended, underbaked (what happens with the other 6 musicians who Shizuka condemns to hell? you get the sense that if the story had painted them with a bit more remorse, or any detail at all, really, all of a sudden Shizuka as a character would have to represent more than just a wish fulfillment trope with a scary reputation and secret heart of gold...), all in all weaving into a rich, dense piece of art that I could keep thinking about and looking at from a thousand different angles.

i want to rate this higher for getting at why I love classical music that brings out the beauty in the atonal and experimental as a trans person, on top of everything else that's wonderful about this book, but also lower for how much I felt was underexplored, which to me is a good sign for a 3.5 rating.

all in all, it's hard to be upset about a book feeling overfull, like a stocking too-stuffed with lovely treats.

Finished this book in about a week. I've heard of Ryka Aoki before but I did not know she was trans, so I was even more hyped to read this book and learn more about her. The writing level is appropriate for something oriented at the YA audience, especially with how it drops pop culture references (lmao Lindsey Stirling, Sword Art Online, and totally-not-undertale) and reaches to the occult and sci-fi. It was easy to breeze through.

I enjoyed the world building and character building a lot for those at the center of the stage, the food is given a lot of care 🤤, it really took the story forward from the start. You start to get draw into the cadence of their life. While the ending felt like what I thought was sufficient for a YA novel, I was disappointed how some characters really did not get their justice/recognition. There are times that this book feels like a typical YA novel and I wish it said more, but there are other times I remember how important it is that it's doing exactly what it's doing (I say as a queer trans Asian person myself). Just... maybe for someone younger than me (in my 20s)?

As others mentioned, this book could use some content warnings on the traumatic experiences that the main character especially experiences. I also noticed that aspects about inter-Asian discourse aren't really touched on: there's a celebration of primarily East and Southeast Asian cultures, not really a mention of many other cultures like South Asian or issues of colorism.