hardcover, 368 pages
Published Sept. 27, 2021 by Tor Books.
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.
I had a problem getting used to the writing style at first, but as I got used to it I could see the beauty of the story
Content warning Very poor ending; selling souls to hell does pay!
I accept that I'm probably not the target audience for this, but here we go... I so wanted to like this as I've seen lots of good reviews and the book does have lots of good aspects: it's nice to see Asian-American communities described so ...lovingly, the food and violin bits are well done, one of the protagonists is a trans woman. But... it's not well written (too many POV changes, too much telling and not enough showing), Bad Things Are Done directly or indirectly by main characters without accountability, characters lack agency and do things because of the authors being able to make them do things as opposed to them being sufficiently well-developed so that you think they're making their own decisions (e.g when Astrid catches Katrina at a webcam). The sciency bits are complete gibberish. The two plot strands come together very clumsily at the end (really would have benefited from omitting the intergalactic donut salespeople (and another thing, if sales are dipping, why not replicate ...money instead of donuts?) and concentrating on the violin/souls aspect). It's also heinously missold as "Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet". It's neither and is a long way from either. I think we can all agree that misgendering is pretty shit, but it doesn't need to be a capital offence; a bit of wish fulfilment perhaps? The quote in the title is said by a character to Katrina but applies to Shizuka, who really is quite a problematic character. And the book lacks empathy for others; there's Katrina, Shizuka, the Trans (get it? the TRANS!) and a few others, but many other people in the book don't rise above NPC level and can be treated accordingly. I feel my blood pressure rising, so I'll stop, but before I do, maybe the book needs content warnings for sexual assault, transphobia, racism and homophobia among others.
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.
In a way this reminds me of Charlie Jane Anders’ All The Birds In The Sky. It’s not often you get a book that manages to tie in not only a lot of LGBT issues but also refugees from outer space and demons with contracts for people’s souls and yet make it all seem like a relaxed and natural world to be in. Obviously it’s a book all about the characters and the choices they make and have made. Very enjoyable and enlightening to ride along with a very foreign perspective from my default one for a while.
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."
I enjoyed so much of this book. The prose was beautiful in parts and genuinely stirring. But I expected it was building to a stronger ending than what it ultimately delivered.
Purchasable
https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250789068.