My Rating: 4 stars
I don’t normally read science fiction and I’m usually not
too keen on books about space travel either, so I surprised even myself when I
decided to pick up Erika Swyler’s latest work Light from Other Stars.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why, but when I first read the summary, I
was drawn to the story and was curious how it would turn out. While I did
end up liking the story as well as the characters a lot, I have to admit that
all the science and space stuff went way over my head, to the point that I
considered abandoning this more than once and moving on to something requiring
less struggle. I persevered however and I’m so glad I did, as the story
was definitely worth it, especially the aspects of family, relationships, love,
and humanity that were so deftly explored through the events that unfold around
the main character Nedda Papas in both the past timeline (which took place in
1986) and the future, inside the space shuttle Chawla. Speaking of which,
the dual timeline format utilized in this story was unique and unlike many of
the other books I’ve read before — two seemingly unrelated narratives that went
off on very different tangents, but then converged in a way that surprised me.
The writing was the other aspect of this novel that stood
out — it was incredibly descriptive for sure, but more significantly, there was
also a gentleness to it, with the author taking a delicate approach to all the
characters while not hiding the flaws that made them human. These were
characters that were realistically drawn, yet at the same time, also didn’t
feel real given the things that happen in the story. Surreal – that’s the word that kept churning
about in my mind throughout the entire time I was reading this. Despite that, as well as the difficult (for
me) subject matter, I still felt captivated by the story and the lyrical nature
of the prose.
If this review sounds vague, it’s deliberate, as this is
one of those stories that needs to be experienced for yourself. To be quite honest, I actually don’t think I
understood a lot of what I read, since, like I said earlier, I get lost easily
when it comes to stories that are heavy on scientific stuff and space travel,
but I think what helped the most in this case was focusing on the other
elements of the story that were more easily accessible and not thinking too
much about the parts I was not able to wrap my head around. This is my first time reading this author’s
works and even though I struggled through this one (largely due to the subject
matter), I am still interested in reading more of her works in the future. This was definitely a different experience
for me and while I probably still won’t choose to read a whole lot of science
fiction because it’s just not my thing, I don’t mind occasionally reading
outside of my comfort zone, especially since finishing a book like this one
feels so rewarding!
Received ARC from
Bloomsbury Publishing via NetGalley.
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