Light from Uncommon Stars

While many elements contribute to the plot of Light From Uncommon Stars, music is an especially significant thread that connects all the characters. Many times characters hear music and find themselves transported back to an earlier memory. Music’s evocative potential and resulting transformative powers are demonstrated in a number of ways throughout the story and tie into the other major themes of identity and change.

Music is what transforms Katrina from a lonely runaway with no self-confidence to a self-assured young woman with a promising future. The violin gives Katrina “a voice with which to sing. And now, that newfound voice was pushing her, urging Katrina to speak” (173). Katrina’s music also affects all who hear it in significant ways. At the music showcase, Katrina plays the theme from Axxiom, a game that allows the player to create their own universes. Drawing on the game’s concept, she harnesses her violin as a tool to create personal universes for every audience member, “to let there be light, let there be colors, then calculus and molecules and starlit vistas, let there be home after home after home where no one was yelled at and no one was beaten” (213). Music transforms Katrina briefly into a deity who, in turn, can also transform reality. After the performance, people approach her wanting to talk about “what they felt when Katrina played, the pain in their lives, and how they felt no one had spoken to them like that before” (214). Katrina also plays for Shirley during her crisis, and the music grounds Shirley again, reassuring her that what she feels is real. Finally, when Katrina plays the Bartók piece during the climax, the piece becomes an embodiment of herself and everything she wishes to express to the world, a declaration of her own identity. Music has transformed her, and her capacity to transform the world is now fully unlocked.

Shizuka’s music is also transformative. As Astrid observes, the greatest tragedy of Shizuka’s curse is that her music cannot be heard by anyone outside of those who live in the same house with her. Its transformative powers have been stifled, and Shizuka is driven by a desperate need to regain what she lost. Shizuka confesses that her dream was to play music that would change the world, something she wanted so badly she was willing to sell her soul for it. In the end, Lan realizes that Shizuka’s music is powerful enough to cure the Endplague, the chronic despair that has infected advanced civilizations throughout the universe. Lan, who at first dismissed Shizuka’s music as trivial and meaningless, realizes that it contains a secret power that the rest of the universe desperately needs.

Refugees and outsiders take center stage in Light From Uncommon Stars. The most significant example is Lan Tran and her family, who are refugees from a collapsing Galactic Empire.

In Chapter 20, Lan tells Shizuka the story of how she and her family escaped from the Galactic Empire. While it is a fantastical science-fiction story, the driving emotional undertones reflect the lived experiences of many actual refugees who have fled from countries ravaged by war and instability. Lan describes how she had to plan her escape far in advance, never assuming that she and her family would be somehow spared from the violence. She had to research the best planet for them to flee to, then generate a believable business pitch to gain a permit that would let them pass the Galactic borders. She had to suppress her emotions for the sake of her children: “[K]eep smiling. Keep smiling to make it seem fun for the kids. Of course they must know. But they cannot know. They cannot know how much you will miss everything you are leaving behind” (193). Lan was even forced to leave her children’s father behind, since he had gotten caught up in the violence. Once on Earth, her family faces the same struggles as many ordinary immigrant families: running a business and trying to stay afloat while dealing with the trauma and grief of what they’ve endured.

The stories of immigrants, while most obviously represented by the Tran family, are also present in other ways as well. The narration frequently detours to talk about the various restaurants and businesses around Los Angeles and the immigrant families who own them. There are many mentions of how those businesses have evolved over time as new families move in and others move out. Immigrants are the ones who create the ever-changing music of the city. The book ends with another young immigrant girl, Ynez, arriving at Starrgate Donut to beg for a job from Aunty Floresta. Ynez admits that she doesn’t have any papers, and her fearfulness echoes the terror that Katrina often expressed earlier in the book, as does her relief at being accepted by Aunty Floresta. This scene therefore creates one final link between the stories of immigrants and the stories of LGBTQ+ people, two groups who are often treated as outcasts in society.

Although Light From Uncommon Stars does feature a romance, its primary relationships of focus are those between parents and their children. The theme of identity is closely tied to this theme, as the characters’ sense of their own identity stems largely from their parental figures’ view of them. Aoki explores not only how parents can affect their children’s view of themselves but also how important children are for carrying on the legacy of their parents.

At the start of the story, most of the abuse Katrina has suffered has been at the hands of her homophobic, transphobic father, and Katrina has internalized many of the negative views he placed on her: “How wonderful it must be, to be normal. But that was not her life, was it? Of course she was a freak” (163). Her mother, while not as overtly abusive as her father, passively enables his behavior and similarly refuses to accept Katrina’s gender identity. After escaping her parents, Katrina finds a new mother figure in Shizuka. The bond between Shizuka and Katrina is a much healthier example of a parent-child relationship, in spite of the fact that for most of the book Shizuka is planning to sell Katrina’s soul to Hell. Shizuka learns to understand Katrina, to communicate with her, and to relate to her interests and experiences. Shizuka shows Katrina acceptance when no one else had before, which allows Katrina to gain a stronger sense of self-worth. In Chapter 28, Shizuka observes the koi fish in her pond, noting that the ones who live the longest are the ones who eat their young, but they also never change or grow or escape from her pond. Shizuka knows she too can “eat her young”—sacrifice Katrina—in order to save herself. But she realizes that the better outcome is to accept her own mortality and allow Katrina to flourish. Shizuka comes to see Katrina as her legacy, a child who will “take this music to places I would never dream. I think that’s enough for any teacher—to know that her music will continue long after she is gone” (280).

Lan’s relationship with her children is also central to this theme, highlighting how important emotional connection and compassion is to parenting. Lan is a fiercely protective mother who is willing to do anything to keep her family safe. But due to her trauma and personal flaws, she can often be insensitive to her children’s emotional needs. Lan fails to recognize Shirley as a full-fledged person because of Shirley’s nature as a sentient computer program; it’s only after Shizuka makes her reconsider that Lan starts to treat Shirley as more of a daughter. Lan also fails to recognize the extent of Markus’s anger before it is too late to stop him from lashing out in violence. Lan often struggles to give the young twins, Windee and Edwin, the attention they need; throughout the book, Aunty Floresta often steps in to take on the role of the nurturing parent. In the end, Lan passes the role of “captain” on to Aunty Floresta.

Finally, Lucy Matía’s relationship to her father and grandfather provides another significant exploration of parents, children, and legacy. While her father and grandfather are already dead at the time of the story, her grandfather’s portrait hangs over her workshop as a constant presence. Lucy’s view of herself is profoundly shaped by the fact that her grandfather made her feel that she was worth less than her brothers because of her gender:

Yes, her grandfather had said that she had the ‘hands of a Matía.’ But her grandfather had said other things, as well. As did her father. Things her brothers were unable to hear. Things that she had never been told. For MATÍA & SONS, the sign said. And though she was a Matía, she was not a son (89).

Lucy’s greatest desire, nonetheless, is to carry on their legacy. She finally realizes that to truly sustain that legacy, she must reject the image her family gave her of herself. Once Lucy finds her own sense of self-worth, her son, Andrew, develops an interest in the business too, giving hope that the Matía legacy will live on.