I loved this book most of the way through. It's about a young woman, Opal, who loves cooking and cleaning, even for a white family in 1930s Georgia. She works with her grandmother, who has raised her since Opal's parents were out of the picture for reasons that are not made clear. Opal has a warm and loving extended family--through blood and church in Colored Town--their section of Parsons. She even mostly loves her white employer's family, including Jimmy Earl, a boy five hears older than her 18, who is back from pharmacy school for the summer and looking at her in a new way. Competing for Opal's affection is Cedric, the preacher's son and up-and-coming pitcher hoping for a shot in the Negro Leagues.

Speaking of the Negro Leagues, Satchel Paige is a character in When Stars Rain Down. And so is the Klan, unfortunately. Despite being about a girl who is happy with her life as it is, a novel about a Black woman in the 1930s south wouldn't be realistic without bad white people doing bad things. It finally gets to be bad enough that Opal loses her patience with white folks' bullshit. She gets made at God, too, but eventually God gets girl back, which is where my love waned because I'm a monster. I had enjoyed Opal's voice and story throughout, but the end came too quickly for me and with too much acceptance and also an unexpected kindness that probably wouldn't really have amounted to much.