Recent highschool graduate Aria Tang West was trying ahead to spending one final summer time together with her two finest buddies earlier than beginning as an astronomy main at MIT within the fall. But that was earlier than some topless photographs, taken by a boy with out Aria’s consent, made their approach to social media. The slut shaming that adopted resulted within the damage of Aria’s repute—and the retraction of invites to her buddies’ summer time homes.
Instead, Aria makes her manner from Massachusetts to Northern California, the place she’ll spend a quiet summer time together with her beloved grandmother, Joan. A well-regarded artist, Joan enlists Aria to help her in cataloging her late husband’s analysis information, some of which she hopes to include right into a sculpture.
Aria undoubtedly doesn’t have intercourse or romance on her summer time agenda, particularly after what occurred again residence, however she nonetheless finds herself drawn to Steph, an aspiring musician who works as Joan’s gardener. Aria’s attraction to Steph, who’s genderqueer, calls into query all the pieces Aria thought she knew about herself, however Aria’s sexuality is only one side of her journey of self-discovery throughout this life-changing summer time.
In an writer’s observe, Malinda Lo reveals that she’s been engaged on this bittersweet novel of love and loss for a decade. A Scatter of Light capabilities as a companion to Lo’s award-winning 2021 novel, Last Night on the Telegraph Club, and although followers will delight at cameos by just a few of that novel’s characters, it’s completely not essential to have learn the sooner ebook to know and admire this one.
However, A Scatter of Light is about in the summertime of 2013 because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned California’s Proposition 8, an modification to the state’s structure that eradicated the proper to same-sex marriage. It’s fascinating to check this novel to the Nineteen Fifties-set Last Night on the Telegraph Club, and to contemplate the vastly completely different experiences of falling in love as a younger queer individual at these two moments in historical past. Aria’s story isn’t just about discovering and embracing your sexuality. It’s additionally about what it means to be an artist, a pal, a daughter and a granddaughter, and about how identities of all types can converge and crystallize as half of the method of rising up.
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