Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this defiantly joyful adventure set in California’s San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

My Review
4 out of 5 stars

This book is pitched as Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I definitely agree with the Good Omens comparison. It’s a little quirky with a Queen of Hell teaching star violinists in exchange for their soul and an alien family turning their spaceship into a donut shop in LA. I think The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (TLWSAP) comparison is maybe due to the Aliens? But I don’t quite get those vibes. TLWSAP is very warm and fuzzy while this one is a harder read. Our virtuoso, Katrina Nguyen, that the Queen of Hell, Shizuka Satomi. ends up choosing to teach is transgender and disowned by her family. She’s on the run with no money and just the violin on her back with hopes of a friend she knew from two years ago may take her in. Her life is difficult and full of challenges that she had to overcome. Shizuka is there to support Katrina and help her see that being a person isn’t a big deal. That warm fuzzy acceptance is there, but it’s still not without external conflicts. Also, in regards to the alien family, the aliens are an allegory for United States immigration, so there’s definitely some commentary there that also isn’t warm and fuzzy. I enjoyed this book a lot more because of the conflicts that the characters have to face and overcome, but I just want to temper those looking for warm fuzzy feels. Again, it does still have an overarching message of acceptance, but TLWTAP doesn’t acknowledge the dark path to get there.

Hm, can I say anything more about the book without comparing it to it’s pitch? That honestly wraps it up pretty nicely. It covers the main reason why I liked it– it was quirky and I learned about some of the experiences transgenders and immigrants might face. It’s definitely more character driven than plot, and the quirkiness is a large draw. At it’s core, it has a lot of heart, and you’ll find yourself rooting for Katrina Nguyen to overcome it all and succeed in her music.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a free eARC via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

See this review on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

The classic collaboration from the internationally bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, now an original series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .

My Review
4 out of 5 stars

This book is about the end of the world and follows various characters who are either carrying out or preventing that process. We have:

Crowley: a demon who lives on Earth and, 11 years ago, delivered the infant anti-Christ to a hospital where a U.S. ambassador’s son is being born. The intent was to switch the anti-Christ with the ambassador’s child. He loves causing a little chaos to Earth dwellers and speeding in his 1926 Bentley.

Aziraphale: an angel who lives on Earth and has had a livelong friendship with Crowley. He loves the finer, gentler things of Earth like fancy food and currently owns a bookshop in London. He works with Crowley to help raise the anti-Christ as another Earth-loving being with hopes of saving the world.

Adam Young: the almost 11-year-old anti-Christ who would like a dog for his birthday and has a close knit of neighborhood friends

Anathema Device: witch and the living descendant of Agnes Nutter, the witch who prophesied the end of the world. Anathema has been following Agnes’s book her entire life and works to locate the anti-Christ

 Sergeant Shadwell: Witchfinder and last officer of the once proud Witchfinder army

Newton Pulsifer: living descendant of famous Witchfinder, Thou-Shall-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer. Struggling to find work as he has an unfortunate ability of frying any computer he works with but desperately wants to be a computer engineer

Guest appearances by the angels of heaven, the demons of hell, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Really, this is a book full of British humor. British humor is my favorite type of humor, so naturally this was a good fit for me. I will say that I did watch the TV show before reading the book, and I think this story works really, really well for a video adaption. In part due to that British humor and silly characters that can easily be portrayed by the likes of David Tennant and Micheal Sheen. I listened to the audiobook of this, and the narrator in particular nails Crowley, as it was very easy to imagine it was Mr. Tennant reading it the whole time. But he does a nice job narrating the book as a whole and giving life to the other characters as well.

I think the most interesting take away of this book (and TV show) for me is the fact that it makes some commentary on the status of the environment and climate change. This book was written back in 1990, but it seems like it could have come out today. I am aware that environmental talks have been around even before 1990, but it’s really sad that we have not progressed really anywhere at all within the past 30 years, or at least have gone backwards as of recent in the US.

I recommend reading if you really enjoyed the TV show or like witty British humor. If you want to watch the TV show or already have seen it and have too many other books to read, it may be okay to give the book a pass. It truly is a straight adaption of one format to the other.

See this review on Goodreads.