Book 800: Body of Stars – Laura Maylene Walter

Aaannnnndddddd we have a new entry into the creepy AF, almost could be true speculative fiction world that has a lot of potential to really explode. When the publisher reached out I was vaguely interested until I read it was about freckles/moles determining the future of girls and women I HAD to read it.*

I have a ton of freckles—including what I call my angel wings that spread across my back down my arms—and found the idea terrifying that the future could be told in markings on your body. And I’m not talking palm reading, which the book discusses, but like actual fated fact. Shudder . . .

Body of Stars is the story of Celeste and Miles, siblings that are fated to change the world through the lies they share (or don’t). They each know something the other doesn’t and that slow reveal is probably the most anxiety building piece of the novel even though you know there is something the entire time. I’m purposefully being vague because I don’t want to spoil it.

We spend too much time either imagining the future, that vast expanse of unborn possibility, or else wandering the past, the land of the dead. (Chapter 2)

Perhaps the future was not outlined permanently, in stone, but rather made of something more malleable. With enough time or pressure, markings could fade, shift their meaning, or represent something else. (Chapter 20)

I think the strongest part of this work is the growth of Celeste throughout the novel and her distinct presentation in each section. From the innocence and naivete of the first two sections to the traumatic and jaded portions in the middle to the concluding resolved and determined at the end she embraces her fate and even pushes to shift it to the ability she is able to shift it and it really worked.

The whole system, the entire structure of our society, was built around protecting men instead of girls. (Chapter 26)

It’s hard to read a novel like this without drawing comparisons to the queen of speculative fiction Margaret Atwood. I definitely got some updated vibes of The Handmaid’s Tale throughout the novel, especially the creepy ass father inspection ritual. The situation wasn’t as dire where Celeste lives, but there were definite hints of the atrocious treatment of women and girls in other countries. But there were also references to the more evolved/advanced countries that I don’t think Atwood was able to explore because it’s 35 years old and the world has already changed so much.

One thing in particular I really appreciated about this was the numerous references to gender and sexuality which Atwood had to write off with a throwaway line (again due to the times).

Gender expression was not a term the Office of the Future would ever deign to define, much less codify in an addendum. This edition, however, was from a far-flung country in the north, a country so liberal that people born in female bodies who identified as men could have their markings stricken from the official record. Likewise, those born biologically as men were free to tattoo marking patterns on their bodies to express their identities as women. Anyone whose gender expression was not strictly binary, meanwhile, could chose to what extent predictions played a role in their lives, if at all. This approach was so progressive, so vastly different from what I’d grown up, that I was still absorbing its implications. (Chapter 22)

Walter was able to explore it in a broader way and even had named characters who had lives and feelings that weren’t part of the mainstream.

Where I struggled and where I almost stopped reading was with Miles’ betrayal of Celeste. I won’t go into specifics and I’m not even sure if that was the intent (Miles certainly beat himself up over it), but I just can’t forgive him for it. It’s hard to say for sure whether Celeste does, but with a line like this I have to assume she does:

A family wasn’t a static, solid thing as I had once assumed. Instead it was  moveable, breathable, breakable. It would expand to make room for the coming loss, and it would also collapse on itself under the weight of grief. (Chapter 27)

The fact that the work Miles, Celeste, and others pursue throughout the end sections I guess makes up for it because maybe it was all fated to happen and written in the markings, but it really felt like a betrayal.

Recommendation: This was a fascinating read with echoes of Atwood’s speculative fiction. I paused for a few days after a certain scene because I was so upset and pissed off at a character, but I’m glad I picked it back up to read the empowering message that the novel closes with. The world Walter built is a fascinating parable to modern American society and race that will only grow more poignant with time.

*I received a copy of Body of Stars from the publisher via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “From the time of my birth my brother Miles read me like a map, tracing my patterns of freckles and birthmarks to see my future and to learn something of his own.”

Closing Line: “Instead I pressed my fingers to the markings on the girl before me and thought, with wonder and intention: You are free. You are wild. You are, now and in the future, entirely your own.“ (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from Body of Stars
“When Deirdre disappeared I felt the world should operate differently, that the days should be longer or shorter, the skies brighter or darker. I expected food to taste hotter, oxygen to pierce sharper in my lungs. If I pricked my finger, I believed the blood wouldn’t stop. I thought everything would hurt more.” (Chapter 5)

“Outside of class, we didn’t always take our bodies so seriously. We delighted in discussing rare cases, like the boy someone once knew who tattooed marking patterns on his body because he felt he was meant to be a girl. Likewise, we heard of girls who identified as boys and tried to scar their predictions out of existence. These were stories adults chose not to address, but privately, we reveled in sharing them. They hinted at a broader, more complex world that expanded beyond the rigid male-female gender roles we lived with every day.” (Chapter 5)

“Another boy backed out of the circle and stood to the side. I squinted and saw it was Anthony from my homeroom. I’d noticed him sitting in the shade earlier, glaring at the ground as if he could will the party to disappear. As I watched his strained face, I slowly grasped the source of his discomfort. He wasn’t interested in Cassandra, just as he wouldn’t be in any changeling girl, or at least not in the desperate sexual way the other boys were. Like me, he surely felt a pull toward Cassandra, wanted to envelope her in his arms, press his skin into hers. And yet boys of his age had an extra desperation in their desires, a telltale gleam. No matter how hard boys like Anthony tried, the lustful pull toward these girls could not be faked for long.” (Chapter 6)

“I didn’t mean it, not fully—the cards were gorgeous, a work of true art. Hand-drawn images with intricately sketched borders of woven garlands. Detailed, delicate. For as long as I could remember I had always been drawn to patterns, fractals, the designs found in nature: snail shell, snowflake, fern frond, lightning bolt. How much easier everything would be if the tarot contained only patterns on their own, designs disconnected from the bodies of girls. But those bodies were the entire point of the erotic tarot. The girls’ skin shined slick-bright and bold, and the markings were pierced through with the utmost precision. The future revealed.” (Chapter 11)

“. . . and I came to believe my skills were improving, that I might have a future in this. I started to believe in something bigger, too—that the maps of fate were open to gentle revision if we only reimagined them. A road might be erased and redrawn a few degrees to the left, or an obstacle removed from the route. As girls, we were taught that our fates were set and any change was impossible, but that was a lie. I could feel the truth through my fingers as I worked.” (Chapter 27)