5/19/2023 0 Comments Light of uncommon stars![]() ![]() When she hears teenager Katrina Nguyen playing in the park, she recognizes something in the girl’s playing: she’s far from being a virtuoso right now, but she has an instinct that can’t be taught. Shizuka Satomi has sent the souls of six of her students to hell, choosing them carefully, training them as violinists, and then letting them play with her special, cursed dogwood bow so that their souls are consigned to damnation. ![]() Insofar as it reminds me of anything, it reminds me of Martin Millar: Aoki gives her world the same sharp edges that Millar’s worlds have, and like his books, Aoki’s is about wresting a happy ending out of chaos. As that description indicates, this is a book that unapologetically blends genres, a fantasy novel that’s a sci-fi novel that’s actually really a novel about saving our lives through music, food, and human connection. Light from Uncommon Stars has three protagonists: a teenage violinist, a grown adult violinist who can buy her soul back from Hell by giving it seven souls of younger violinists (her students), and a donut shop proprietor who is actually an alien on the run from galactic warfare. Note: I write this review while listening to Béla Bartók’s “Sonata for Solo Violin.” No disrespect to the other orchestra sections but strings are the best ones. ![]()
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