Is this that new hopepunk/squeecore/sweetweird thing? Because, thanks, I fucking hate it. I should have known not to go there when it was compared to Becky Chambers and Good Omens and blurbed by TJ Klune, but it was from the library and up for... a Hugo? A Nebula? IDK? At least I didn't pay for this.

Anyway, there are demons, deals with the devil, music-based magical powers, space aliens, and a vague nod to 21st century politics, and it's too many things for my cranky old brain. Why are there aliens? Why does the luthier have magic powers? The answer to every question you have about this book is "because the author wanted to," which is just too much whimsy all in one place for me.

In addition, I normally like plots surrounding recovery from abuse and learning to believe in oneself, but both characters who'd been treated badly by their family because they were trans/a woman had that as basically their whole personality. From this I learned that both transphobia and sexism are bad! I'm also pretty dubious about the only representation of the queer community was "It's full of racists, rapists and thieves," but all of the characters who weren't part of any queer ethos were so fine with being people being trans that they don't understand why the trans character thinks it's a potential issue. The whole thing felt really heavy-handed and simplistic.

Add to that switching PoV five-hundred times in every single scene like I'm reading an RP transcript, and the only reason I made it so far into this book was that I was mowing the lawn, and didn't want to bother stopping to choose a new book.