THE SONG THAT MOVES THE SUN

Astrology and magic combine in this otherworldly fantasy.

At a concert, best friends Claudia and Rora meet Amir and Major, two boys who are searching for a song that will rectify disharmony in the universe. Despite some skepticism, Claudia and Rora are inclined to believe them: Recently there’s been troubling natural phenomena worldwide, Claudia’s misbehaving twin brother was shipped off to live with their physicist grandmother in Italy, and Rora was mugged and now suffers from debilitating anxiety. Major and Amir say they come from Mercury and Mars—although they are human, not alien—and they believe Rora is an amplifier, someone who can increase the power of music. She can help them, and they can help her as well. Alternating chapters feature the girls’ first-person perspectives as they travel through portals from Washington, D.C., to different planets, searching for a solution to the imbalance. Though most characters are entertaining enough, short yet tedious chapters set in the 13th century and following Dante Alighieri, Beatrice Portinari, and Marco Polo, who discover the portals and establish settlements on various planets, are interspersed and drag the story down. The story’s magical elements fizzle, and as the planets’ settlements are barely distinguishable from Earth in technology and culture, the worldbuilding never quite comes together. Claudia, Rora, and Major are White; Muslim Amir is cued as being of Middle Eastern descent.

The stars don’t quite align for this one.