A review by kumishona
Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark by Sarafina El-Badry Nance

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

I was especially excited to pick this up because Sarafina Nance is a fellow UT Physics and Astronomy alum, and I love reading physics and astronomy books by women! 

 

It has some basic astro content, but is mostly about being Egyptian-American, growing up with anxiety and complicated family, domestic abuse, her dad's cancer, and being a breast cancer previvor by getting a double mastectomy at a young age. She touches on her astro career throughout the book. While it’s not the quickest read, I'm really glad I picked it up! 

 

I felt some dust in my eyes everytime Nance talked about how Egypt is just different and more joyous and vibrant compared to the cold, lonely US. She discusses the emotional impact of having major parts of your culture and family in another continent facing political upheavals, plus the emotional mother/daughter gap when you're second gen with the generational trauma that is passed on. It was sad to hear about how Nance had several kinds of slurs thrown at her as a kid in Austin, Texas, because of her ethnically ambiguous features. The talk about curly hair amidst Eurocentric beauty standards hit close to home. 

 

Here, I only wish she were more explicit about her religious background, especially considering she talks about going to a heavily christian-oriented school and then transferring happily to a more secular one—It’s not fully clear to me whether her mom’s side of the family is Muslim, or what she personally identifies as. It’s not information she owes to readers, of course, but I think it would have added important context. 

 

Throughout the book, we pick up clues about Nance's psyche, how her parents kept her on a strict schedule and implied their love was conditional on her success, or that her academic success was holding the family together. Her parents' marriage was terribly rocky, and the subsequent divorce was painfully drawn out. My heart goes out to the younger Nance, especially knowing that she's an only child. It must have been an immense burden to carry. 

 

We watch Nance develop anxiety and workaholism and learn to identity and overcome it. By the end, we watch her dad grow out of his past worldview, too. She has mentioned recently on her public social media that her mom cut off communication and chose not to attend her wedding after this book came out, which is truly devastating. 

 

I wasn’t expecting to read about an abusive college boyfriend that weaponises his own Arab ethnicity as an excuse for his misoginy, but that section, and watching how the impact of the relationship effects Nance for the rest of her life with PTSD, packs a real punch. The narrative is written really well—You can tell why Nance made misguided choices based on how she was raised. I loved how Nance connected the influence of controlling male partners to very direct barriers women in STEM face. 

 

Throughout the book, she cites several other examples of misogyny in astro/physics academia. Fortunately, Nance’s privileges in terms of career opportunities and mental healthcare from a young age largely overshadows these setbacks. In the first third of the book, I found myself wishing the simplistic sections about her childhood were made more condensed (whilst retaining their point). As it is, “Part I: Origins” would perhaps appeal to and inspire young girls, while the other two parts are darker and cover slightly more mature themes. 

 

I want to clarify here, just because she grew up privileged in some ways doesn’t negate the value or significance of her experiences—not at all. In fact, I wish there were more successful women of colour in astro/physics that have faced little to no bigotry or barriers. I don't think someone's story is made “less interesting” because it was free of suffering. We certainly don't have that standard towards books written by cisheterosexual white men. But considering the wide array of past and current WoC experiences in astro/physics, I did find myself greatly wishing for more social data in the book, so that her personal narrative would perhaps fits into a bigger picture. 

 

Now, onto the astrophysics! … Sadly, I didn't find the science communication very engaging, detailed, or ... well-written, really. The paragraphs felt rushed and summarized, like passages from a kids’ encyclopedia. The chronology about stars, planets, and the universe was a bit all over the place. 

 

I definitely saw the goal—Nance wants us to see how the optimistic nihilism astronomy provides has been a comfort and a guiding light in her life. And so every chapter begins with astronomical or cosmological nuggets and then cuts off to continue her personal memoir—and in theory that sounds really cool. And perhaps my own expectations were just misplaced; I expected it to have more science-for-laymen bits, like a lot of other combined memoir/sci-com books by women. Regardless, her execution just … doesn't land—the explanations are so generalized that I really can't tell what specifically about astrophysics research she's really passionate about as a scientist, how specifically the math in her physics classes she worked so hard for have been tools for astronomy. I can’t help but think that if I were a laymen who didn’t know how math fits into physics and physics fits into astronomy, this book wouldn’t have left me any wiser. If you ask me about the day in the life of an astrophysicist, I … still don’t know. It’s mentioned that that they go to classes, do math, code, and present research—but the real technicality of astrophysics is left as ambiguous as ever. And beyond her statements about the nihilism, the book doesn't try too hard to dissect and show us her feelings and perspectives to that end. 

 

And I think during the beginning of the book, I just couldn't “see the vision”, as they say. I felt like I was reading about a kid with regular (albeit rough and unfair) struggles and typical (though admirably ambitious) dreams. But I very much saw the real goal of the book by the end, after I had flown through the latter two thirds. 

 

Sometimes a child grows up in a moderately stable, loving, privileged home, and expects their life is going to be “normal”. They'll go to college, maybe grad school, find a job, find a partner and start their own family perhaps, take care of their parents in their old age. 

 

But then they end up experiencing something completely different, unprecedented events that feel bigger than their life should have been. My understanding of this book is that Nance's personal profound experience was her dad's cancer—and her own following preventative double mastectomy—which she had to go through as a very young adult. 

 

She was 23 before the epilogue, my age right now. While many parts of her life are completely different from mine, her crippling fear of death, her need for a support system, her attachment to the familiarity of her body, and her unease towards medical decisions and environments were extremely relatable. These are universal feelings, for most young women. 

 

When shit hits the fan (and/or miracles happen) like that and turn your entire world turns upside down, it makes you contemplate every step of the wild ride that has been your life to lead you to this moment. (In her author’s note, Nance says that this book started as a cathartic personal project.) You realise you have a unique story, one that’s worth telling. 

 

I’m glad Nance was able to tell hers. 

 

A solid 4.5 stars, and so glad I picked up a signed copy at BookPeople during the Texas Book Fest! Highly recommended!