Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced audiobook of this book.

I very much enjoyed the short stories of BIPOC women. Women who are new to a country trying to build a new life so far away from their original homeland. Their trials and tribulations. Women in inter-racial marriages hiding in their husband's shadows. Husbands that are mostly supportive, women that are forging through life independently.

This book really resonated with me and I highly recommend it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There’s something deeply satisfying about a short story collection that lingers long after you’ve closed the book. An Astonishment of Stars is exactly that—a thoughtful, intimate look into the often-overlooked lives of racialized women, written with sharp insight and unflinching honesty.

Kirti Bhadresa doesn’t just write stories; she builds windows into the lives of women who are simultaneously invisible and essential. These characters navigate a world that demands their labor but denies their full humanity. From the wife borrowing her white husband’s name to move through public spaces with less friction, to the mother and daughter caught in an unspoken tug-of-war between past and future, each story feels like a quiet revelation.

What stands out most is Bhadresa’s ability to capture the quiet moments—the ones that don’t scream for attention but hold entire universes of meaning. A glance, a gesture, a silence—she uses these to expose the weight of unspoken emotions and the subtle violence of everyday microaggressions. And while the stories are deeply specific in their portrayal of BIPOC women’s experiences, they also tap into something universal: the complexity of familial ties, the strain of societal expectations, and the longing to be seen for who we truly are.

The prose is restrained yet powerful, with Bhadresa delivering gut punches in sentences so beautifully crafted, you almost don’t notice the sting until it hits. And yet, there’s also warmth in these pages. Even in their struggles, these women find small joys, moments of resistance, and the strength to carry on.

If I had one critique, it’s that a couple of stories felt like they ended too abruptly. I wanted more time to sit with the characters, to understand their journeys more fully. But in a way, that’s a testament to how compelling these stories are—I didn’t want to leave them.

Big thanks to Kirti Bhadresa, ECW Press Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to experience this poignant collection. An Astonishment of Stars is a stunning debut that shines a light on the lives we too often overlook. It’s a must-read for anyone who loves stories that are as quiet as they are powerful.

This very special audiobook from Kirti Bhadresa showcases the voices of women in the BIPOC community with narrator Roveena Gnanabakthan. bringing characters to life thanks to the varying of accents and emotion portrayed. The book follows fourteen short stories focusing strongly on female voices and the life as a woman of colour in the society we live in and have lived in for years. With heavily character based stories throughout (particularly in parts two and three) readers are taken on an emotional journey with thought provoking stories and characters. The narration for this book genuinely kept me hooked throughout making each story feel fresh, unique and special in their own right. I did find that I played around with the speed for different stories which made this an easy listen that I found myself completing fairly quickly.

The stories throughout this book where touching and thought provoking and I found that there were some stories I enjoyed more than others and the stories I struggled to connect with and fully invest in I realised I struggled to follow the story. There were however, several stories I really enjoyed while reading this book and in those I loved the coming of age stories, the difference in how the stories were told with some spanning over the course of decades showing a journey of the characters and their stories. As well as the coming of age stories I really enjoyed Braids which focused on a Bi-racial family with children and felt a personal connection to this in particular. I felt overall this book put a spotlight on Southeast Asian/Canadian identities and forces its reader to pay attention to topics and situations they may not be fully aware of. As a fan reading this book we are put in the positions of these characters making for a powerful and insightful read.

Overall, I found I really enjoyed this book. The varying characters, the narration that brought us varying accents and emotions and thought provoking yet character driven stories that gave me a read unlike anything I have picked up before. It made me question how diverse my reading material is and by the end I wanted to enjoy even more stories. I would recommend this book in particular to my female friends of both younger and older age ranges advising they keep in mind to be in the right mood before picking it up and reading.

You know I love indie CanLit and short stories so I was really excited to read AN ASTONISHMENT OF STARS by Kirti Bhadresa. I really enjoyed all fourteen stories! I liked how these stories focused on female points of view, women’s lives and family life. I liked how the first two stories were about teenage girls going to summer camp and concerts which was so relatable. My fave stories were The Illness which is a sad story and Braids which is about a family with biracial children. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Roveena Gnanabakthan was so great and really brought these stories to life. I love how the cute cover relates to one of the stories!

A solid set of fiction stories. Unfortunately I found the audiobook narrator quite robotic and monotonous which took away some of the emotion in the stories. Her diction and pace were really good, just the flatness of her narration was an issue to me.

Overall 3.5/5

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my ARC of the audiobook of this short story collection! There wasn’t really a bad story in this collection, all of them enjoyable in their own way, though of course some were more memorable/impactful than others. Most of them explore the lives of South Asian women and the relationships they form - mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, aunts and nieces. Cultural appropriation, not feeling ‘Asian enough’, gentrification, tokenism, and gender roles are all recurrent themes in this collection.

My favourites were the two stories about the young woman and her levitating aunt. The realistic setting with a touch of the surreal was so well done, and I loved the themes of women not playing into the expected gender norms of their heritage. I also really loved the story where a woman gets onto what’s obviously meant to be The Great British Bake Off, or its Canadian equivalent - so good! Then there was the story where a woman interrogates why she always feels the need to use her husband’s name when making bookings, showing how people of colour are constantly pressurised to take up less space than their white peers.

I have to say I didn’t love the narration, as it sometimes felt a bit flat. But overall, such a solid collection!

This is a good collection of short stories about differnent experiences of "BIPOC" women. Although I enjoyed the listening of it, I really felt like several chapters could have been full novels and I prefer short stories that feel complete.

If you are looking for an uplifting book about people that have overcome challenges, you will enjoy this book of short stories. So many heart lifting story’s of hope, help and community.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc audiobook.

An Astonishment of Stars: Stories by Kirti Bhadresa. Audiobook narrated by Rovenna Gnanabakthan. Publishing, OCTOBER 1st, 2024 by ECW Press.

4 cakes out of 5 cakes.

“A beautifully written short story collection that charts the lives of racialized women as they navigate their relationships, aspirations, and the burdens of memory and expectations
This collection of finely wrought short stories explores the often invisible lives of racialized women as they walk through their days, navigating mundane microaggressions, trying on ill-fitting roles, and managing emotions they never allow others to see. There is the wife who uses the name of her white husband in public. There is the mother who cleans the small-town hospital while her daughter moves to the city and suppresses their shared past. There is the teen girl who obeys her parents even as she watches her rebellious older sister slip further and further away. Each of these characters is both familiar and singular, reminding us of women we have been, of our mothers and daughters, neighbors and adversaries.” (Blurb)

Kirti Bhadresa’s debut collection of short stories is an eye-opening read into the lives of racialized women in 2024. Topics of racism, culture, heritage, classism, family, labor. Kirti Bhadresa is a writer to keep an eye on. Great debut collection. Great narration. Don't sleep on this one! Put this on your TBR list!

Thanks to #NetGalley and ECW Press for the chance to listen and review.

#netgalley #ecw #ecwpress #fiction #shortstories #canlit #bipoc #YYT

This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Kirti Bhadresa, ECW Press Audio, and NetGalley.

This audiobook is narrated by Roveena Gnanabakthan. Roveena did a great job. She used different voices and accents to bring these stories to life. I would recommend that readers consume this on audiobook. The narration really adds to the experience of the stories.

This follows the theme of the children of immigrants to Canada. Some stories covered days while some stories covered decades. Most of the stories dealt with and focused on family relationships and dynamics. Some stories were simple domestic dramas, some were coming-of-age focused, and some employed magical realism. It was a mixed bag focused on familial and cultural expectations pressed against the cultural norms of Canadian and the larger Western worlds' expectations. My favorite of the short stories was Backstage Passes, a tale of 2 sisters that followed them both for decades.

Overall, I found the stories touching, engaging, and relatable. My maternal grandmother was an immigrant with my mother and her siblings, the first generation born in the US.

Thank you to Kirti Bhadresa, ECW Press Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

When I listened to the audiobook "An Astonishment of Stars", I immediately felt connected to the stories. Roveena Gnanabhaktan's narration brought a calmness that highlighted the characters' experiences, making each moment feel more personal. The narration effectively captures the tensions and emotions around themes like identity and relationships, without overdoing it. What struck me most was how the narration added an extra layer of depth to the text, something that may not have resonated as strongly in a written format. At times, I found myself needing to pause and reflect, which shows how deeply the stories affected me. Although some parts were more emotionally challenging, I felt this only enriched the overall experience.

Not what I was expecting at all. I really liked this audio and I feel that the narrator was a really good match. The premise of the book was great. A really enjoyable listen and have recommended to girls in the book club

I was going to begin my review by calling this collection unique but would be remiss not to mention how annoying of an adjective that is for me to use here. It's only society's default to eurocentrism that causes this to feel "unique" to me; Let me be clear I only mean the book itself, not the experiences depicted within. I am, quite frankly, ashamed for not having previously put in the effort to seek out BIPOC authors and stories. Had I done so, I'm curious if I would have been able to appreciate the nuances of her writing itself, more than the bigger picture of each story taking so much attention, as they felt so new and unique to me. Or is it better that I didn't focus on the writing, and instead took in the heart of the stories? Of course, there is the option to revisit this as well, each time focusing on one or the other. I could (and will in my head) keep going back and forth on this.

For the stories themselves:
There were a few stories that I couldn't tell you a single detail about. It was a battle to get through at points; If it wasn't a book I'd been approved by NetGalley for review, I would have given up on this after coming upon the first story that bored me. That being said, I am SO glad I didn't give up. Some of the hardest hitting stories were toward the end. Admittedly I'm not sure if there's a strategy to organizing a collection of stories like this, but I have to assume there is... I'd be interested to learn if this follows that strategy.

The lulls were just SO apparent and hard to overcome for me, also preventing a 5/5 star rating. Aside from those, I was really moved by the remainders and enjoyed Kirti Bhadresa's style of writing.

<b>The stories that have stuck with me most are:</b>
Backstage Passes
Daksha Takes the Cake
The Illness
Heads Are Going to Roll
The Doctors' Lounge
The Gossip
In a Name

The narrator's intonations aren't what I'm used to as a Michigander who only speaks English, but I enjoyed the change in pace and mannerisms.

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Kirti Bhadresa and publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!}

All of these stories were either 4 or 5 stars for me. It was an emotional read that speaks a lot about how individual South Asians have emigrated to Canada. There is talk of ignorance, racism, culture and forgetting heritage. I felt like the stories were sitting you down with the characters to hear their thoughts and feelings. My favourite story was with the family who bought the restaurant, it broke my heart.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book is compromised of short stories, and each story is about a different woman and the various struggles each face. The author tackles microagressions, racism, what it means to be a woman, daily life, among other things we face daily. I think the author did an amazing job highlighting these obstacles.

Overall, this was enjoyable as each short story highlighted an experience and wrapped up nicely. Some had enough to make me want a full novel! It was atmospheric, women's lit. It just didn't really stick with me for lasting impact and I think I would have preferred to physically read over audio. I would definitely read more from this author.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for the audio ARC.

Truly enjoyed all the short stories and found the diverse women/stories very fascinating. Some of the short stories would make excellent novels.
I look forward to reading more by this author.

Thank you #NetGalley and #ECW Press Audio for the ARC

Listening to this on audio is a very relaxing experience. Roveena Gnanabhaktan has a very soothing voice and on x1.25 speed this works perfectly for me.

The stories themselves are simple (compared to the fantasy genre I usually gravitate towards) but endearing. I find that I care for the characters quickly as they are written in such a way that makes them feel real.

The writing itself isn't my all-time favourite, and I feel if I was reading instead of listening this may lessen my enjoyment, but the way the characters come to life is amazing. I can picture everything that is happening and feel like I'm witnessing a snapshot of someone's life.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for the ALC