Review of "Light from Uncommon Stars" by Ryka Aoki

I had been looking forward to this book since coming across the blurb early in the year, and I must say it did not disappoint. Aoki tells a rich and moving story with compelling characters, excellent use of flashbacks, and a mix of interesting concepts. She pays careful attention to the motivations and experiences of each, and creates believable reasons for the dilemmas they face. The idea of selling one's soul feels like a heartrending choice rather than melodrama or stereotype, and each person who comes to that Faustian bargaining table arrives with a unique reason for being there. At times the science fiction aspects of the book feel slightly out of place--while Lan is clearly a key part of the story, and her relationship with Shizuka is as much a fulcrum of change as Shizuka's with Katrina, making Lan truly alien sometimes feels like adding too much to a book already loaded with intense descriptive passages and layers of symbolism. I found that my emotional investment in the book was tied much more closely to Katrina's progress, and the impending question of whether she and Shizuka would find a way to avoid the fates they had so thoroughly internalized, than to the issue of the Endplague or Lan's true reason for building a stargate on Earth. Still, Aoki balances the intersecting plotlines carefully, and her descriptions of Shizuka and Lan's many meals were as well-crafted as the images of Katrina's music. As a lapsed musician and a current foodie, both were personally moving and served as a clear core for the plot to build around. While certainly full of dark moments that it does not shy away from (it consumed two full days of my attention, and both deserved and demanded that kind of focus), Light from Uncommon Stars gives hope that the fate of our souls is ultimately in our own hands, even if the events of our lives are not.

Four and a half out of five stars.