Astra – Bowersová Cedar (2022)

If you could see yourself as others see you, would you recognize who you truly are? The novel Astra is an outstanding debut that reveals the various faces of a mysterious woman, seen through the eyes of ten people she encounters throughout her life. After a childhood spent with an apathetic father, a dreamer, in a rural commune in a remote part of British Columbia, Astra Brine leaves for Calgary, where she must fight to find her own path. Her life becomes a study of the thin line between addiction and love, need and desire. Her steps intersect with other people – these encounters are often brief, yet always intense – who alternately want to save her, dominate her, change her, embody her, or escape from her. There is a childhood friend who is frightened by Astra's unpredictable behavior; a stranger who saves her from a life on the streets but has to grapple with his own demons; a mother who hires Astra as an au pair at a time when her marriage is falling apart; a man who marries her after a very brief acquaintance… All these encounters reveal uncomfortable yet important truths about who we are and what we crave. While Astra herself remains an elusive yet captivating axis around which the individual chapters revolve, her...