This book hit the spot and was just what I needed. It had the right amount of love, adventure, whimsy, and darkness that also managed to cover a breadth of topics and themes. It’s hard to describe Light from Uncommon Stars, much like it’s hard to describe Good Omens without someone raising their eyebrow. You have a lot of queer and alien goodness, an interesting deal with a demon, a passionate love for violin music, some anime and video game nerdiness, a love for ducks, and all the Asian food you can imagine in LA County... as well as donuts.

As quirky as the premise of the book is, Aoki approaches incredibly dark and heartbreaking events (for example, significant transphobia and a history of abuse), touching on sensitive topics that leave a particular ache and desire to see healing, especially for one of the main protagonists, Katrina, who is trans. The ugliness can be overwhelming at times, and I can see how it might get to be too much for some readers. But Aoki also weaves in moments of love and light that show gentleness exists in this world. Ultimately, this all depicts the complexity and peculiarity of being human.

And I think that’s what I loved about this book was how human it was. At its core, this book takes care to show the different ways individuals—women, specifically—learn to love themselves (again) with support from each other, as well as navigating issues of (im)perfections. Speaking of, I really liked the particular slant to center women throughout this story. From the protagonists to the side characters, even those mentioned in passing, Aoki takes care to make women present and uplift them.

Aoki also writes beautifully, with musical descriptions (figuratively and literally) that sweep the reader off their feet as she jumps between different characters’ perspectives. The multiple perspectives approach to her storytelling might be off-putting to some and, admittedly, there were times when I had to reread sentences to make sure I knew who was narrating.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a breadth of topics and themes covered in this book, sometimes to the point that it can be a little overwhelming. Yet, I can’t really imagine this book not being chaotic; it’s almost like it was meant to cover this wide range and for us to exist with it. And, surprisingly, I was really okay with this structure Aoki crafted.