The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds

In The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds, Central America promises to be an all-encompassing escape from the guilt-ridden shores of Aotearoa for Thea. There, she joins Chris, the elusive man she’s thought of exploring the possibility of having more than friendship with – until he introduces her to his girlfriend Sarah.

Despite Thea and Sarah’s initial reservations, the three fast become an inseparable trio.  Author Gina Butson brilliantly captures the heady nature of their friendship, played out in San Pedro La Laguna, a Guatemalan town on the southwest shore of Lake Atitlán. Beautifully expressed, it’s easy to imagine the vibrant place, rendered eloquently by Thea’s imaginings. San Pedro is where the hum of energy seems to inexplicably hold the trio together with the strength of shared friendship and the intoxicating pull of a different culture and way of life. One albeit tainted by the seedier side of drug trading life. An emerging catalyst of discontent soon reveals itself.  

Wonderfully written, each of the four parts of The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds purposefully builds a narrative that is gentle though not passive, interchanging the past and present. When tragedy rewrites the trio’s journey and the nature of their intwined relationships, Thea finds herself far way again, this time in Tasmania, Australia navigating a new relationship of sorts.

It's a relationship and span of time that will test her, make her search unknowns, rail against past and present trauma, and rally against unanswered questions. Ultimately, it will lead to her figuring out a literal and metaphorical way home that is paved with resolution, self-exploration, and forgiveness.

At times throughout The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds, I thought the story may end a different way. The lives of Thea, Sarah, and Chris seemed to hitch frequently on happenstance and an undercurrent of doubt, with understandings between the characters that to me suggested a different outcome… until it all panned out organically in a way that made sense.