one subtle detail in the book that i absolutely love is that the Hail Mary crew's names are written in their native language instead of being Americanized or transliterated. Grace is written as "grace", Yáo is written "姚" and Ilyukhina as "Илюхина".

i think the first time grace loses a tooth from scurvy, once they get past the initial panic (“no, i won’t die from losing one tooth” and “yeah, it hurts, but it’s not that bad” and “i can still eat just fine, i promise”), rocky tentatively asks if he can hear it more closely.

Rocky bringing Grace to Erid but in his haste to get them to start working on the food problem he forgets to describe what Grace ‘looks’ like, so the Eridian scientists and doctors eager to meet the alien open the door and what lurches out is a tall long horrifically thin shape with protruding teeth crowded around a wet orifice, long limbs that bend and sway oddly tipped with creepy long fingers made of dozens of little bones, organs on full display and a squishy loud body

grace thinking he has to teach rocky about commas: