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Body of Stars

Searing and thought-provoking - the most addictive novel you'll read all year

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About this listen

 Vox meets The Immortalists in this bold and dazzling exploration of fate and female agency in a world where women own the future but not their own bodies.

Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage into adulthood. Like every woman, she holds a map of the future in her skin, every mole and freckle a clue to unlocking what will come to pass. With puberty comes the changeling period - when her final marks will appear, those that will solidify her fate - and that of those around her. The possibilities are tantalising enough to outweigh her worry that the future she dreams of won't be the one she's fated to have - or the fact the changeling period is the most dangerous in a woman's life. A time when abduction is rife.

For some, glimpses are not enough. There are men who wish to possess these futures for themselves. Whose only way to take control of the future is to take control of the women who hold the script. Abducted changelings return shunned from society with their futures stolen.

Celeste's life, and her marks, have always been closely entwined with her brother, Miles. Celeste's skin holds a future only he, as a gifted interpreter, can read and he has always considered Celeste his practice ground. But when Celeste changes she learns a secret about her brother, Miles, that she will do anything to keep to herself - and Miles is keeping a secret too. When the lies of brother and sister collide, Celeste determines to create a future that is truly her own.©2021 Laura Maylene Walter Destiny Dystopian Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Women's Fiction Disappearance
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I have to admit that my overwhelming feeling towards this is ambivalence. Its basically a story about how women have little control over their own lives, and if they're "taken" (ie abducted and raped), they're seen as the guilty party purely because they're female and present before a man who can't control himself (it's their fault, not his). You can draw a lot of similarities to our own society, really.
It's just that even with all of this going on, it feels dulled, nothing seems to happen, even when it does.
Disappointing.

This could've been so much better!

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