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Cover of Why Stars Burn

Why Stars Burn

Kathleen Alcalá

Ages 14–18

Released Nov 25, 2025

Content report card

Why Stars Burn parent’s guide: what’s inside

Low confidence

Language

Sexual content

LGBTQ+ themes

Substance use

What it offers

A note for parents

This is an adult literary novel-in-stories set in Los Angeles that explores family, identity, and relationships within Mexican-American communities. While the description hints at mature themes (traumatized war veterans, complex romantic relationships), the full content is unclear from available metadata. The work appears to reward empathy and cultural understanding but requires more information to assess language, sexual content, and other content categories definitively.

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From the publisher

Sirena Diamond is the child of Mexican immigrants who has grown up on the cusp of two cultures. When she isn't consoling her traumatized war veteran brother or entertaining her eccentric abuela with her pet duck, she is caught between a boyfriend trying to erase his past and a man whose past is an ever-changing story a... Sirena Diamond is the child of Mexican immigrants who has grown up on the cusp of two cultures. When she isn't consoling her traumatized war veteran brother or entertaining her eccentric abuela with her pet duck, she is caught between a boyfriend trying to erase his past and a man whose past is an ever-changing story and her best friend without boundaries. Why Stars Burn, a novel-in-stories, introduces us to Sirena's world and the mysteries that lie just below the glittering surface of life in Los Angeles. Kathleen Alcalá is the author of The Deepest Roots, a work of speculative nonfiction on sustainability and island living. Her work has received the Governor's Writers Award, the Western States Book Award, and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, among others. A graduate of the MFA Program at the University of New Orleans and the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, Kathleen is editing an anthology on La Llorona, the Crying Woman of Mexican mythology, with Norma Elias Cantú. Her novels Spirits of the Ordinary and The Flower in the Skull have recently been republished by Raven Chronicles Press.

Shelved under

  • Fiction
  • Fiction, general

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ISBN 9798986614694 · Rosarium Publishing

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