The thing about Project Hail Mary that I think has made it linger, at the very least, in my consciousness, is that while it has a happy ending, it's fundamentally a tragedy
Grace ends up in a place he likes at the end of the story, he's happy, he's safe, he loves the people around him, and it's an obviously better ending than he initially expected to get when he woke up on the Hail Mary, but that doesn't erase everything he lost
It doesn't change that he had a life stolen from him, that he was, in a very real way, murdered when Stratt put him on the Hail Mary
I cannot remember who said it, but they were on the money when they said Ryland died on earth and Grace was born on the Hail Mary
And there's something about a well written tragedy that just holds me captive in a way very few things can
