(Seriously, nothing about this is “we saw each other, fell in love, and everything was immediately fabulous.”) Alexandria grudgingly acknowledges that she needs the group’s help to get answers about her astronaut mother, and the other kids rise to the occasion. During the ensuing recovery, the girls begin to slowly, painfully bond. Pushing harder than they should, Ryann and her friends stumble onto the new kid’s explosive secret and accidentally cause her physical harm. Ryann is happy to do so, but Alexandria is a tough nut to crack. They are a motley band of survivors who cling to each other through adventures large and small, and when new student Alexandria arrives with some unique personal baggage, a caring teacher suggests Ryann reach out to her as well. Ryann leads a pack of teen misfits at school, each of whom is struggling with their own issues.

Doggedly hanging in there with high school, she and her brother and his baby boy live alone in a rundown trailer park where they hang on to life by their fingernails. Ryann Bird has big dreams about space travel and knows the harsh realities about survival on Earth.

It’s not hyperbole, and it’s not exaggeration: The Weight of the Stars is a killer book, a science fiction story set mostly on Earth that will stir your spirit and make you believe that everything in this beat-up world really can be okay. She wrote: “This book is starlight on broken concrete, it’s flowers on a broken rooftop, and it’s a masterpiece.” If you are a fan of McGuire (and good God, why wouldn’t you be?) then that blurb is going to send you out of your seat and running to the nearest bookstore to order Ancrum’s outstanding book. Ancrum’s The Weight of the Stars without first mentioning Seanan McGuire’s stunner of a blurb.

The weight of the stars by k ancrum