CW: so much transphobia. it is overcome, but so much of it. our transgender character also is briefly in a very precarious housing situation that veers into assault.
As I started planning for the “I’ve Heard No One Works in August in Europe 2022” trip (pro tip: London is not in Europe, Londoners do work, oops), I started going through my “Want to Read” list here on Goodreads, which I don’t do a good enough job of turning into reality (or curating, for that matter–there are a number of books on there that I no longer have any interest in reading).
This gem of a book is a product of that work, as it was immediately available at one of my many libraries. Hard to blurb, for sure–I felt like a large number of things are reminiscent of this book, but not in a mean way. There are certain ineffable themes that wind their way through novels that I enjoy, and since I did enjoy this one…you get my drift. If I had to pick a few, I’d actually say Everything Everywhere All at Once (the mother/daughter relationships, whether actual maternal or not, along with the existence of a donut), the inevitable Becky Chambers (because of the nature of the relationships between alien/paranormal beings), and maybe some vein of Fredrick Backman (for the matter of fact way the vaguely omniscient narrator names the emotional currents of the book).
The blurb does as good a job as I can do in explaining what’s going on here. There’s a preternaturally talented violinist who made a deal with the literal, actual Devil to deliver seven musician souls for eternal damnation (promise greatness, with a caveat that is ignored). There’s a family of aliens/AIs who have set up shop in a beloved donut shop to wait out an intergalactic plague. There’s a young transgender prodigy who is trying to make it as a YouTuber of anime music. None of these pieces should hang together but they do, much like complicated music and the best symphonies.
The best part of all of this is how little attention Aoki sometimes gives to some pretty quirky bits. So Satomi learns that the cute donut shop owner who’s caught her eye is named Lan Tran but is actually a retired starship captain of a different world. Cool, cool, but like, does she like her?? That’s the important part. Or, when Katrina is terrified of telling Satomi that she is transgender. Satomi is like, okay but like the violin? What about the violin? Can you tell me how it affects your violining? (and of course, Katrina has to show Satomi that when you are transgender in a fundamentally transphobic world it affects everything, but it’s neither here nor there).
Like the best scifi, the issues are never about the space or machinery but the human emotions that underpin everything we do!