Well, chalk this book up as yet another one everyone else seems to be gushing over while I just shrug and go "It's all right." Don't get me wrong, there is plenty to love about this book: its open, honest, and real depiction of being trans, hopeful messages, themes of immigration and the trials of trying to assimilate to a new place, the gorgeous descriptions of food, music, and setting. And yet, even with all those wonderful things, I didn't find myself growing too attached.

For one, I think whoever wrote the blurb for this book gave it a little disservice by marketing it as "Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet." I haven't read the latter yet, but, as to a former, having a Faustian bargain in a book does not automatically put it in the same league plotwise as Good Omens. There's so much difference between the two in terms of tone, humor, themes, etc. that it makes the comparison somewhat disingenuous. But that's only a small nit from me.

As for our characters, I was the most drawn to Katrina's storyline, as it was one I could more relate with. That, and, out of the other perspectives that we get, her's appears to be the most developed. Her journey has the clearest emotional arcs and the progression moves constantly forward instead of spinning its wheels, which unfortunately happens to the other perspectives as they go on. 

Lucy's story is probably the best example of this. Compared to the multiple conflicts of the other characters, her's is solely "I want to go into the family business, but I can't since I'm a girl," which, when that's the only trouble a character faces, it becomes incredibly repetitive. Among our cast, she feels the most irrelevant, especially when she doesn't really interact with the other protagonists all that much, so the overall plot loses some cohesion at times. Her story feels like an afterthought, which is a shame seeing as it could have been more given some better development.

The Tran family also suffers a bit from underdevelopment, mostly from Markus' entirely dropped plotline more than halfway through. All in all, I think if this story had been solely Katrina's, I might have liked it a lot more. I think the fact that this book combines both supernatural and extraterrestrial doesn't do it any favors for me as well, since I find that the two don't really mesh well all that often. I mean....in this world, what's really the difference between demons and aliens if both serve as otherwordly beings? Does the religion of earthly beings have any weight on the aliens? It all becomes a bit of a mess if you think too hard, or maybe that's just me. It also leads to an extremely cop out ending that, while lovely and beautiful in concept, just kind of had me rolling my eyes.

So, this is a exquisitely worded, touching story that will resonate with so many people and one that I will encourage others to read in the hopes that maybe they'll get more out of it than I did.