CBR square- Queer Lives. What a lovely, absorbing, moving book. I really loved Light From Uncommon Stars, the Hugo nominated book from Ryka Aoki. It’s about a transgender girl named Katrina who runs away from her abusive home and runs towards Shizuka Satomi, a woman who has made a bargain with a demon to bring seven souls to Hell in order for people to know her music again. She plays the violin and so does Katrina. Once she hears Katrina play she knows she is capable of being the seventh soul. Honestly the demon is kind of a lesser character and not that important. He does try to do something terrible to Katrina, but it merely moves the plot along. Call him a MacGuffin demon.
If this were all this book was about it could have been enough. If you’ve ever played music, or been moved by music, you should read this book. Shizuka takes Katrina in and teaches her to play the violin better. There are some interesting parts in here about “real music” vs. music made for entertainment, as Katrina learns music from video games.
There’s also Lan Tran, an alien refugee who owns a doughnut shop and has four children. There is an Auntie who is adorable and unlocks the secret to why their technology created doughnuts are not selling. (AI has no soul and good food has soul.) The family is plum colored. She and Shizuka have a meet cute when Shizuka needs to pee and the shop is normally very strict about letting people use the employee bathrooms.
While parts of the book may seem absurd (see the plum colored aliens), there are big concepts about personhood and really being heard. Plus really great descriptions of how really good food can remind someone of home. Have a snack on standby. I’m grateful that the Cannonball Bingo has me search out content for squares so I could find this. I really loved it.
