This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
In this meditative, tenderly written debut novel from Laura Maylene Walter, a teenage girl struggles with the challenge of creating her own fate in a world where a woman's destiny is written on her skin.
Celeste Morton is approaching her changeling period, when an adolescent girl's birthmarks that reveal her future will settle into their final form. Her brother is also eager to study her adult markings--since only women have these markings, Miles can learn about his fate through what Celeste's predict about her family; he also longs to practice interpretation professionally, in spite of the field being closed to men. When Celeste does change, her markings reveal a future tragedy she can't bear to share. It overshadows even the fear of abduction, a pervasive threat for changelings, who are nearly irresistible to men.
The focus of Body of Stars is less on its protagonist's struggle with society than on a more intimate level. Its heart is in the relationship between the siblings, in resilience after a life-changing event, and in the search for meaning in the face of mortality. Walter also hints at larger themes of what these markings mean to issues of gender throughout the world, including implications for transgender people in countries more progressive than the Mortons'.
This luminous coming-of-age story will appeal to fans of The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker and readers of feminist science fiction like The Power by Naomi Alderman. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: This luminous, otherworldly Bildungsroman asks the question of how one can shape the future when they already know their destiny.

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Jess Zimmerman (Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven with Jaya Saxena) brings a fresh perspective to 11 monstrous female figures in this expansive essay collection.
Harpies, Furies, Medusa, Lamia, the Sirens, the Chimera, Charybdis, the Sphinx: these creatures and others have for centuries held iconic status beyond their original roles in Greek mythology. From the start, Zimmerman makes it clear that what she presents is not a classicist's perspective on their meaning in literature. She offers instead a survey of how these figures have entered modern consciousness and how they relate to traits that are feared in women. Using Homeric versions of the legends, the retellings by Ovid and more, Zimmerman launches into explorations of ambition, hunger, sexuality and ugliness. Traits that cultural constraints would paint as monstrous can bring women suffering, but she also illustrates how, when wielded properly, they can be a source of power. In the right hands, the characteristics that make them monstrous might also make a hero. Intimate reflections on how these traits have influenced Zimmerman's own life offer a personal touch that balances the larger cultural considerations of insults used against women in politics, or how teenage sexuality is depicted in a music video.
Fans of Circe by Madeline Miller and Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly alike will be engrossed by this insightful collection. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: A fresh look at female-coded monsters from mythology offers insight about embracing characteristics that people fear.