"A fascinating and intricately woven piece of speculative fiction...Byrne’s work delves into themes about entropy, destiny, how place affects us as we change the world, and the search for meaning. But it is also a thoroughly human work where ambition, loneliness, love, and the need to belong resonate, no matter the year. Complex and captivating."
"The Actual Star is a stunningly realized work of literary fiction. Byrne blends elements of speculative and historical fiction to create a trio of timelines, each a thousand years apart, the individual stories serving to illustrate a fundamental truth of narrative power.... Flexible and fluid, these tales grow and evolve until they are both of us and not of us...The Actual Star is unlike anything I’ve read. It is immersive and idiosyncratic and without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read in quite some time."
"One of The Girl in the Road's many strengths [is] Byrne's nuanced yet viscerally potent exploration of sexuality. There's a lyricism to her prose that's both blunt and deceptively dimensional...delivered with all the vivid, haunting poignancy of a vision quest."
"Monica Byrne traveled around the world——Ethiopia, India, the South Pacific——gathering material for this incredible debut that propels her into the front line of young American writers who are moving beyond the blast of the Western canon."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"In its refusal of genres and boundaries, its celebration of ancient heritage and a riotous profusion of languages, religions, smells and tastes, and above all in its heartfelt, humorous appraisal of the shocking beauty of life, all scars and suffering included, The Girl in the Road is profoundly generous and humane writing; wise without posturing. I have no doubt that it is quite simply one of the best books written this year."
Pop Matters on The Girl in the Road
"Relentlessly kinetic... Byrne creates a world in which her female protagonists have genuine agency...a liberating and, at times, dizzying exploration of the human possibilities enabled once traditional norms are fully transcended."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Sci-fi has long claimed to be the multicultural literature of the future. This is the real thing."
Wall Street Journal on The Girl in the Road
"It's transfixing to watch Monica Byrne become a major player in sci-fi with her debut novel: so sharp, so focused and so human. Beautifully drawn people in a future that feels so close you can touch it, blended with the lush language and concerns of myth. It builds a bridge from past to future, from East to West. Glorious stuff."
Neil Gaiman on The Girl in the Road
"The Girl in the Road is a brilliant novel, vivid, intense, and fearless with a kind of savage joy. These journeys-Meena's across the Arabian Sea and Mariama's across Africa-are utterly unforgettable."
"Breathtaking in scope and ambition. With Byrne as your assured guide, The Actual Star offers so much to discover from the first read, and invites returning to over and over." — John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of the Interdependency Trilogy
"When a book is this ambitious, either it is a thumping success or it falls on its face. Happily, The Actual Star is a stone-cold masterpiece. It is one of the most moving novels I have read and surely a contender for major awards." — New Scientist
“An indescribable epic saga of three reincarnated souls from the author of The Girl in the Road . . . The Actual Star is for those who love complexities and questions that transcend single lives.” — The Millions
"A fascinating and intricately woven piece of speculative fiction...Byrne’s work delves into themes about entropy, destiny, how place affects us as we change the world, and the search for meaning. But it is also a thoroughly human work where ambition, loneliness, love, and the need to belong resonate, no matter the year. Complex and captivating." — Booklist
"The Actual Star is a book about sacrifice, about the long view and deep time, about the universality of human experience and the particularity of any given moment. It's a first-rate work of sf, and a hopeful and fearful book about the climate. It's just great." — Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized and Walkaway
“Contained in this book is a vivid historical novel, a heartfelt contemporary narrative, and a mind-boggling science fiction story, all tightly braided together into a single experience that is bold, wild, profound. It's a novel you won’t forget.” — Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future
“Sweeping, mesmerizing, The Actual Star is a travelogue of souls, an epic that leaps lightly between the centuries. From the royal children of an ancient Mayan dynasty to the nomadic pilgrims of a far-future religion, Byrne draws her interconnected characters with compassion and depth, weaving their stories into a mystery with echoes in past, present, and future. At the center of it all is Leah, a young American woman whose search for her roots in Belize will have repercussions far beyond her lifetime. A magnificent achievement!” — Helene Wecker, author of The Golem and Jinni and The Hidden Palace
"The Actual Star is a speculative fiction masterpiece" — Fantasy Hive
“Beautifully rendered . . . moving . . . a terrific novel.” — Locus
"The Actual Star is a boldly daring examination of what it means to be human from a non-traditional perspective, one focused away from the Western-European colonialist lens and zeroed in on a culture many think lost to the sands of time, but that still exists very much to this day." — Lightspeed Magazine
"The Actual Star is a stunningly realized work of literary fiction. Byrne blends elements of speculative and historical fiction to create a trio of timelines, each a thousand years apart, the individual stories serving to illustrate a fundamental truth of narrative power.... Flexible and fluid, these tales grow and evolve until they are both of us and not of us...The Actual Star is unlike anything I’ve read. It is immersive and idiosyncratic and without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read in quite some time." — The Maine Edge
Beautifully rendered . . . moving . . . a terrific novel.”
"The Actual Star is a speculative fiction masterpiece"
"When a book is this ambitious, either it is a thumping success or it falls on its face. Happily, The Actual Star is a stone-cold masterpiece. It is one of the most moving novels I have read and surely a contender for major awards."
An indescribable epic saga of three reincarnated souls from the author of The Girl in the Road . . . The Actual Star is for those who love complexities and questions that transcend single lives.
"A fascinating and intricately woven piece of speculative fiction...Byrne’s work delves into themes about entropy, destiny, how place affects us as we change the world, and the search for meaning. But it is also a thoroughly human work where ambition, loneliness, love, and the need to belong resonate, no matter the year. Complex and captivating."
"Breathtaking in scope and ambition. With Byrne as your assured guide, The Actual Star offers so much to discover from the first read, and invites returning to over and over."
"The Actual Star is a book about sacrifice, about the long view and deep time, about the universality of human experience and the particularity of any given moment. It's a first-rate work of sf, and a hopeful and fearful book about the climate. It's just great."
"The Actual Star is a boldly daring examination of what it means to be human from a non-traditional perspective, one focused away from the Western-European colonialist lens and zeroed in on a culture many think lost to the sands of time, but that still exists very much to this day."
"Byrne can tell a damn good story."
A trio of superb performances anchors this complex story of reincarnation and belonging across millennia. With an air of youthful certainty, Carolina Hoyos narrates the story of teenage Mayan twins who are hoping to save their kingdom from ongoing decline in the year 1012. Kareem Ferguson’s soothing tones guide the listener through the experiences of Leia in 2012 as she treks to Belize in search of her heritage, finding more mysteries than she could ever have dreamed of. And in the far future of 3012, Gisela Chípe expertly illuminates a world in which rival philosophers compete for the souls of nomadic wanderers who have survived a climate catastrophe. Despite vast differences in the settings of each storyline, all three narrators work well to give listeners a clear path to follow. N.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
A trio of superb performances anchors this complex story of reincarnation and belonging across millennia. With an air of youthful certainty, Carolina Hoyos narrates the story of teenage Mayan twins who are hoping to save their kingdom from ongoing decline in the year 1012. Kareem Ferguson’s soothing tones guide the listener through the experiences of Leia in 2012 as she treks to Belize in search of her heritage, finding more mysteries than she could ever have dreamed of. And in the far future of 3012, Gisela Chípe expertly illuminates a world in which rival philosophers compete for the souls of nomadic wanderers who have survived a climate catastrophe. Despite vast differences in the settings of each storyline, all three narrators work well to give listeners a clear path to follow. N.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
