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