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.
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.
What a bizarre book. The mix of tones and genres is really jarring. We have a surreal mishmash of demonic, space opera, donuts... but also abuse, transphobia, racism. It also does this strange thing, where it switches viewpoint characters multiple times a page in the middle of a conversation, that I never quite knew what to make of. Overall this book is extremely readable, it drew me in completely. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I'm not sure how to describe this but it was lovely.
This is a truly eclectic, (way) more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts novel that is at points hilarious, at points very hard to read (the book doesn't shy away from the reality of being a queer runaway kid like the MC) and overall a roller coaster of great, disparate science fiction and fantasy ideas that coalesce into a great narrative with great characters and manages to stick the landing.
Going into my short list of all time favorite books.
There are some really beautiful aspects of this book, but there's just far too much going on in this story for my taste. This felt like at least 2 different novels that were mashed into one, and perhaps that's part of what the author was going for. The plot might suggest that something which seems a bit off and out of place is exactly what the author is trying to create, but even in the midst of knowing that the ending was still a weird combo of beauty and also head scratching. Good read, would recommend for someone to take on a vacation but definitely set your expectations.
I don't think I'm the target audience but that's OK. I found the comparison with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to be quite shallow: there's aliens and that's kind of it. I was constantly miffed by the materialism and waxing lyrical over cars which I think contributed hugely for my disliking of the book. But it's definitely an interesting voice that I appreciated listening to!
Oh my gosh! I read another review that describes the book as being ‘like a warm hug.’ And that seems like a pretty apt description. This book is just so incredibly warm and affirming. This is literary comfort food.
Katrina just wants to play violin. But her family can't accept her for who she is. Shizuka needs to deliver a seventh soul to Hell – or she loses her own. Lan just wants to protect her family and serve good donuts.
Honestly, I don't understand how a story with so much darkness in it (transphobia, ableism, death, hell, sexism, sexual assault, etc.) still manages to be so comforting. How is that possible? I don't know. But it is.
Aliens, donuts, violins, a trans MC, a contract for a soul. Seriously, read this book now.
Every review of this book I've seen starts out by saying that the reader isn't sure how to describe it. I'm going to have to echo that sentiment. Just know that it is amazing and you should go read it even if you have no idea what it is about.There are two main parts of the story with a minor subplot.
Part 1:
A violinist has made a pact with a demon. To get out of it she needs to deliver the souls of seven exceptional violinists to him over the course of 49 years. She has delivered six souls. Her time is almost up. She meets a runaway transgender girl who plays beautifully. She is completely self-taught with terrible technique but she is amazing. The teacher takes her in to groom her to be the seventh soul.
Part 2:
A family of aliens has landed on Earth. They bought …
Every review of this book I've seen starts out by saying that the reader isn't sure how to describe it. I'm going to have to echo that sentiment. Just know that it is amazing and you should go read it even if you have no idea what it is about.There are two main parts of the story with a minor subplot.
Part 1:
A violinist has made a pact with a demon. To get out of it she needs to deliver the souls of seven exceptional violinists to him over the course of 49 years. She has delivered six souls. Her time is almost up. She meets a runaway transgender girl who plays beautifully. She is completely self-taught with terrible technique but she is amazing. The teacher takes her in to groom her to be the seventh soul.
Part 2:
A family of aliens has landed on Earth. They bought a donut shop that has a large fiberglass donut outside because they want to use the donut as a space gate. Running the donut shop is their cover. This book will make you want to try their donuts.
Subplot:
A woman from a family of violin restorers is trying to keep her family's store alive.
So how does that all come together? That's the beauty of the story. I'm not going to say too much because watching it all come together is part of the fun.
There is a lot of tough subjects here especially surrounding Katrina, the young violinist. She has been abused by her family and has had to leave her house because she is trans. She supports herself with sex work. She is verbally, physically, and sexually abused by clients and strangers. She experiences a lot of transphobia online and in the music community. Some of it is instigated by the demon just to cause her pain.
She's delightful though. She knows who she is and what she wants to accomplish. She is caring in spite of the world not always caring about her.
This book is about the importance of family, music, and food to heal your soul. You will learn a lot about why violins are special. There are lyrical descriptions of lots of food - not just donuts. Family takes center stage - whether they are healthy or abusive, strong or weak, biological or found.
I'd recommend this book to everyone.
This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
The backstory involves a deal with hell and also aliens, then (at least in the first fifth of the book) it's a contemporary story about a trans kid who has run away from home, with hints of what feels like a slow burn sapphic romance. To me, it feels like the skipped the (extremely interesting) hell story, involves the most mundane bits possible on the alien story, and I'm not in the right headspace for a transphobia story. The combination as a whole doesn't fit what I want to read right now, so I stopped. I only tried reading it because of the Hugo nomination, since the description alone was enough to tell me this probably wasn't going to be a book I'd like.
Purchasable
https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250789068.