Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family’s blessing to pursue the career he’s always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words. Harry’s and Danny’s lives are deeply intertwined and as they approach the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook their friend group to its core, Danny can’t stop asking himself if Harry is truly in love with his girlfriend, Regina Chan. Lan shook her head. "They'll need to find the Grand Unified Theory a few more times before they can even begin to understand what 'everything' is -- sorry, I didn't mean to offend your civilization." Reading about the aliens’ group dynamics and growing pains is a pleasant diversion in the midst of the hell-driven plot, but the most compelling alien affair of them all is the tender, tentative love between Lan Tran and Shizuka. Aoki does a beautiful job of portraying falling in love at an older age, rendering Lan and Shizuka’s story with all the elation proper to love, but also nodding to the realism and sense of proportion that different priorities and an already-formed sense of self can impart to the experience. Shizuka’s priorities do not shift when she begins falling in love with Lan; she simply divides her time between her heavenly affair and her hellish one.

Part historical fiction, part magical realism, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885. 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.This book is weird, most definitely. Despite having read the summary when I requested a copy for review, I was extremely surprised when the aliens showed up. I was reading the beginning, thinking, “OK, this girl plays the violin, this violin teacher needs a new student, I see where this is going,” and then, boom! Aliens. It was not what I was expecting at all. But it works. Food, too, is a constant in Light from Uncommon Stars—we hear of bitter melon, noodles, kiwi boba, tea eggs, tangerines and eggplant parmigiana. Its presence in the novel is comforting, and a perpetual source of delight to its characters—a pleasure we readers soon begin to share in. Anyone who makes it through the book without exceeding their daily recommended caloric intake should consider it an achievement. Food is also a welcome refrain in a novel that can be morally discomfiting, and in which danger constantly looms. It is synonymous with home, whether for Katrina, for our aliens, or for the immigrant families in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley who grow fruit and vegetables in their yards. Food is occasionally even a character unto itself, obtruding unapologetically on conversations where souls hang in the balance, as in this one between Tremon and Shizuka: A dark but ultimately hopeful sci-fi exploration of the threats faced by queer people of color [and] a love letter to immigrant culture and the power people have to save each other . . . a beautiful, satisfying story of redemption and families of choice.”— Publishers Weekly

Lothian, Alexis (January 17, 2023). "Ryka Aoki and Rivers Solomon win 2021 Otherwise Award! Honor List announced" . Retrieved May 28, 2023. I won't go into detail any more, but the lives of Shizuka, Katrina, and the alien captain Lan Tran all have their lives interconnected by chance, a wonderful narrative blooms. Each of these characters are so vibrant and have such different perspectives. The book employs a type of third person omniscient narrator, constantly jumping between perspectives and different thoughts. But I was always able to tell who was who based only on the way the character thought. Tags: aliens, andre alexis, Asian American, bildungsroman, book review, child abuse, East Asian, eating, fantasy, Fifteen Dogs, food, Good Omens, homophobia, immigrants, Isaac Asimov, Krithika Sukumar, LGBTQ, Light from Uncommon stars, los angeles, Music, Neil Gaiman, Racism, rape, review, Ryka Aoki, San Gabriel Valley, science fiction, sexual trauma, sexual violence, speculative fiction, Star Trek, terry pratchett, trans, transgender, transphobia, trauma, video game music, Video Games, violin, violinist, YA Fiction, young adult By the light of her phone, Katrina applied concealer around her eye and to her cheek. It would be better not to face the world with visible bruises.Ryka Aoki's prose is sublime, the emotional connections she makes are like sparkling jewels . . . Light From Uncommon Stars is fantastic, beautiful, and deeply, profoundly moving.”—Jenn Lyons, author of Ruin of Kings courtesy IMP Awards) Creative inspiration can come from all kinds of strange, beautiful and unexpected places – a waterfall at sunset, a colourfully-dressed woman on a train at peak hour or a snippet of history, long forgotten but dredged up to fill a social media post with a fascinating factoid. Continue Reading