This book is so many things: a love story to the food and immigrant culture of LA, an adoring paean to videogame and classical music, a coming-of-age rescue of a trans girl escaping abuse, a Faustian bargain involving cursed violins, and also aliens who have disguised their stargate inside a donut shop. Quite often the prose is beautiful, lyrical, evocative… and yet the writing is super choppy, the first person perspective comes across as awkward, and the POV switches so rapidly between characters that it’s honestly really annoying. I liked this book anyway, but I liked it despite the writing style.