Body of Stars
A Novel
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“An incredibly strong debut.... It’s well worth your time.”—New York Journal of Books
In a world where female bodies hold the map to the future, one young woman must fight to change her family’s fate.
Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage to adulthood. Like every girl, she was born with a set of childhood markings—the freckles, moles, and birthmarks on her body that foretell her future and that of those around her—and with puberty will come a new set of predictions that will solidify her fate. The possibilities are tantalizing enough to outweigh her worry that the future she dreams of won’t be the one she’s fated to experience.
Celeste’s beloved brother, Miles, who is training to be a fortune-teller, is equally anticipating what Celeste’s transformation will reveal. But when Celeste matures into her adult markings, she discovers a devastating omen about Miles’s future. Desperate to protect her family from the truth, Celeste’s once charmed life unravels, forcing her to question everything she’s ever known about fate and female agency, and face the perils of knowing what’s to come too soon.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Walter's uneven debut novel (after the collection Living Arrangements), she conjures a fabulist world in which female subjugation, gendered oppression, and rape culture are ever present. Celeste Morton is born like any other girl: with markings like constellations all over her body indicating what her future holds. As she reaches puberty, she comes into the so-called "changeling periods," a weeks-long phase in which young women are irresistible to men. If they're not careful, they could be kidnapped and raped. Celeste's brother, Miles, aspires to become a professional interpreter of girls' markings, a practice forbidden to men, and uses Celeste as training, but over time, Celeste's adult markings contradict Miles's prophecies, which foretell Miles will die at 21. Then, Celeste is abducted by two men, and, after waking up in a hospital covered in bruises, she's forced to enter a rehabilitation program. Meanwhile, Miles's insistence on becoming an interpreter catches the conservative government's attention. While the worldbuilding details are impressive, the critique of rape culture feels shallow and cursory, and the overly earnest characterizations don't help. Readers might want to pass.