Rambling

On the plus side, the supporting characters were wonderful, and why this book gets two stars from me! The expats were lovely and funny and intriguing, and I would genuinely read a book that focused on them and their adventures without all the failed spy-thriller elements that happened in between. I loved Maggie, Arthur, and Graham, and wish we got more of them and their experiences (if this book was written from one of their POVs, I think it'd be much more interesting!) The author clearly has chops for historical fiction, I hope she works in that genre a little more.

The writing was very poetic and flowery, and that was also good! There were some odd choices here, which lowkey took me out, but I find most of them to be really funny so here's some examples:

A great graphite pencil inscribed the diagonal journey of water in the air

Adela was sitting at her desk, hands stacked. She was so neatly posed that I found myself wondering what meme she was referencing

THIS ONE SPECIFICALLY was so eye-roll inducing? What does it mean??? Why would a good writer write something so unbelievably cringy and dumb?

I had a feeling like I'd always assumed I was a real girl but someone had flicked me in the eye and it had produced no pain, only a glassy click: I was just a doll, with no more inner intelligence than a bottle of water

Another odd, overcomplicated thing. This is the kind of writing that is trying to show you how elevated it is, while honestly saying very little at all

He waves to me with a free arm. He knows one human greeting and by golly he plans to use it. I wave back. He waves again. I shake my head. No more waving.

What a silly first contact. But also: the stumbling of Grace and Rocky's first interactions was one of my favorite parts. They so desperately needed to communicate, and their patience and ingenuity in reaching that goal was incredible.

"I don't really care about morality," Stratt said. "She really doesn't," I said. "I care about saving humanity. So get me some greenhouse effect. You're a climatologist. Come up with something to make us last at least twenty-seven years. I'm not willing to lose half of humanity."

Stratt is absolutely fascinating to me. We don't learn a lot about her, or why she was chosen for this role, but by golly was she the woman for the job. I'm immensely impressed by her, and I want to know so much more about her. Why was she chosen? What is her background? Her undergrad was History, and she knows countless languages, but what was her job before? What happened to her, when all was said and done? She's the kind of person I really admire, while also being absolutely terrified of her.

Also her:

"Go to hell." "Oh, I will, believe me. You three are going to Tau Ceti. The rest of us are going to hell. More accurately, hell is coming to us."

Absolutely bonkers (I wish I could put her whole speech before this here... but I won't. Read the book tho)

"Another similarity: You and me both willing to die for our people. Why, question? Evolution hate death." "It's good for the species," I say. "A self-sacrifice instinct make the species as a whole more likely to continue." "Not all Eridians willing to die for others." I chuckle. "Not all humans either." "You and me are good people," Rocky says. "Yeah." I smile. "I suppose we are."

All I wrote with this note was: "Screaming crying throwing myself out an airlock"

I'm not some intrepid explorer who nobly sacrificed his life to save Earth. I'm a terrified man who had to be literally kdragged kicking and screaming into the mission. I'm a coward. All that came to me in a flash. I sit on the stool and stare at the lab table. I went from nearly hysterical to... this. This is worse. I'm numb. I'm a coward.

The repetition of "I'm a coward" quite literally stole my breath. Something about that, in this moment, was so fucking effective and crushing. And the fact that: he has his moment. It hurts so, so much. But it doesn't change the person he's become. He's still himself, he's still grown. Now it's just easier to see... I do wish we got some more insight into Grace's specific emotional development on this point: we get to see it happening through the plot, and maybe it's because I'm partial to interiority in my own writing, but I do think there's a bit of a gap by not having him actually confront this aspect of himself. But that's just personal preference.

I laugh as I float into the lab where Rocky is waiting. "On Earth, we have a scary, deadly creature called a spider. You look like one of those. Just so you know." "Good. Proud. I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob."

This just made me laugh.

And finally:

I can go home. I really can. I can return and spend the rest of my life a hero. Statues, parades, et cetera. And I'll be in a new world order where all energy problems are solved. Cheap, easy, renewable energy everywhere thanks to Astrophage. I can track down Stratt and tell her to shove it. But then Rocky dies. And more important, Rocky's people die. Billions of them.

AHHHHHHHHHHH (Screaming, crying, throwing myself into an airtight xenonite jar) (The love, the compassion, the strength of their bond after so many weeks of working together, caring for one another, understanding one another)

⭐️Giovanni's Room, by James Baldwin

Rating: 5 stars

Not a ton to say about this one, except it's clearly a classic for a reason! It was definitely one of my favorites of the class... which I'll get more into the other picks. But I like the moral ambiguity, I like that the main character is his own worst enemy. I just liked it.

⭐️Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel

Rating: 3.5 stars

This one was interesting, I liked a lot of things about it, but it being for a class actually ruined it for me. Having to keep up a quick pace for school (when I would normally take breaks with this kind of read) and talking about it (and people bringing up lots of their own anecdotes...) kinda killed the experience. I'll never read it again, but I'm glad I did. I highly recommend it !!!

⭐️In The Dream House, by Carmen Marie Machado

Rating: 5 stars

This was really good!! I normally don't care for nonfiction, but this book was really creative and gave me a lot to think about! I think it's an important book, I think most people would enjoy reading it!

⭐️On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong

Rating: 4.5

I can't remember why I knocked a bit off this one, but I genuinely enjoyed this book! I was irritated in class, because some people were trying to discuss "how much" of the narrative was fiction versus true to the author's life, meanwhile I'm like: if he wanted to write a nonfiction book and make it clear, he would. But he didn't. Just decipher the book as a book. The symbolism and the disjointed narrative were both really interesting to me, and a lot of the messages (war, drug use/overdose, complex family dynamics) were personally important to me. The prose/style of this book is by far my favorite of the year so far.

⭐️Crush, by Richard Siken

A poetry collection! This one wasn't assigned, but I read it because I had to write a paper about queer poetry and I'd already read War of the Foxes and knew I liked Siken's work. It's excellent, obviously. My favorites were "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out" "I Had a Dream About You" and "You are Jeff".

⭐️Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe

Rating: 1 star

(i sort of crashout in the paragraph below. If you don't want to read that, please don't)

I don't want to HEAR it if this is your favorite book. It was not for me at all. It was also the ONLY book we read with a trans/nonbinary voice in my Queer lit class. You don't get to throw in a crappy graphic novel and say you're representing trans voices. I love queer stories of all types, but the professor positioned the class as having all different kinds of queer voices and that just wasn't true.

I have no clue who the target audience of "Gender Queer" is, but it's not me, a nonbinary adult. The illustrations look like they were ripped straight from an instagram carousel; it's juvenile while being too mature for kids and too explicit to share with family. I hate this book. I hate stories that are "about" being queer, honestly, because queer people! Are in fact humans! With lives! With histories and futures and wants and concerns not revolving entirely around gender identity/sexuality!