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 …
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.
Faustian bargains, aliens, the love of music, and the journey of a transgender woman. It all fits together pretty well. I understand the comparisons to Becky Chambers, in that a chosen family supports one another.
Content warning mild spoiler about ending
This book is a combination of a serious coming-of-age / YA novel about a transgender teen girl escaping an abusive family, a star trek parody, and a comedic judeo-christian-urban fantasy along the lines of Good Omens.
The coming-of-age parts are quite touching, although the protagonist is meant to be so extraordinarily talented, it requires a fair amount of disbelief to be suspended.
The soft-sci-fi aspects are amusing, with echos of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and some attempt at something more serious (the "Endplague") which didn't quite engage me.
The silly-Hell plot points work better with the YA part of the book than the scifi. The climactic battle between the forces of Hell and the Good Aliens is a bit perfunctory.
I didn't find this addressed issues on the same scale that the Becky Chambers books it is often compared with, although it dives into more depth on the specific trials of transgender teens. I guess it feels a bit more like a diary and less like extrapolation.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the Asian-American-Experience aspect of the book, which is interesting, although mainly manifests through loving discussion of food. I would not know how people feel about being referred to as "Asian" in the USA, but it seems to be an identity claimed by people in the book. It is interesting that the love interest of the Asian-American violin teacher is a space alien, but a space alien who looks Vietnamese (yes, the boat-people metaphor is a bit obvious).
Not sure what I think. Did I enjoy it? Sorta. I did finish it, so that's something.
Not a spoiler per se, but the end lacked oomph. It builds and builds and builds then petered out into "everything was fine."
