Light From Uncommon Stars

This book didn't do it for me, which was disappointing because I really, really wanted to like it. I appreciated the book's deeply sensitive portrayal of Katrina, who exists at the real-world intersections of transphobia, physical and sexual violence, racism, classism - and very realistically suffers from the PTSD and dangerously low self-esteem generated by these challenges. I just didn't find the story she's situated in to make much sense. At first I really excited about the unlikely setup - a formerly talented musician, Shizuka Satomi, has apparently lierally sold her soul in to play music, and in return has to provide hell with 7 souls - which she provides in the form of erstwhile studenst who become world-famous under her tutelage, only to eventually die horribly and get dragged off to hell. At the book's opening, she's looking for her seventh student. As part of her search, she - improbably enough - stumbles across a donut shop that's serving to camouflage a family of space aliens who are hiding out on earth for some reason, and Satomi falls in love with the donut shop owner/space captain. And in the middle of this, the aforementioned Katrina turns out to be the likely seventh student, as it turns out she is an unrecognized and untrainined violin prodigy. I was hoping this madcap setup woult yield a great, unusual read - but unfortunatley, it didn't realy come together, some pretty serious situations or issues (including murder and, possibly, the end of the world?) are strangely glossed over, and at the same time many of the major plot points felt really generic. I was also uncomfortalbe with the fact that Satomi's crimes - the fact that she knowingly and literally damned six people to hell - is really not reckoned with, beyond some vague insinuations that the previous six students kind of deserved it because the were a-holes. In a book that was all about showing the main characters kindness and empathy, the refusal to look their (like, extreme) flaws in the face and hold them accountable was a further distraction in a already pretty unfocused book. All that being said - I'm glad I read the book and would read this author again in the future. Obviously she is full of inventive ideas and creating great characters; hopefully these will mesh better in future projects.