Pom

This was a nice and cozy read. I liked that we got a little more of a view on the history of this world through interactions with Ghuh'loloan. That being said, I felt confined with the story revolving mostly to the fleet - although that might have been the intention. The world this story takes place in is full of so many interesting concepts and it almost annoyed me that we stuck mostly to human civilization in this one. But it was a nice read regardless. RIP Sawyer, you deserve better man 😔

This was a very good book - it was really well written and the characters felt very VERY human. Touched a lot of thought-provoking topics of course and I particularly liked the discussions surrounding the "selfishness" of bringing a child into the world. The author was incredibly good at making me feel the emotions of Natsuko, ESPECIALLY when it came to loneliness and even moreso during her pregnancy. You could really feel how at peace she was with things finally working in her favour.

Good book 👍

I especially liked the science surrounding the whole adventure, it goes into a nice amount of detail and the new concepts introduced seem somewhat realistic while still being interesting. Using Grace's memories slowly coming back to him as a narrative device was also really clever and really well done. The book is also kinda funny, I do think it tries a little too hard but I can chalk that off to the personality of Grace who we find out early is a school teacher which I suppose also explains his self censoring.

Spoilers Ahead

I REALLY liked the entire concept of astrophage and all the biological interactions surrounding it. The testing around their predators (I've already forgotten their name oops) was a super fun part of the book and kept me reading despite in reality it probably not being an interesting process. Once the correct mutation had finally been bred I could feel the joy of the characters - that entire section was really well written.

I'm glad they didn't force a romantic relationship between Grace and Stratt - I think it's good that it was played into a little bit, but I much preferred the reveal that Stratt forced Grace to go on the trip and that he did not volunteer himself like we were lead to believe. I do think that it would have been nice for this to have been a point of conversation with Rocky, in fact I think it would've been cool to have Grace and Rocky talk about the fact that Grace has lost his memory.

Speaking of Rocky, he is easily the best character in my book. Friendly, lonely alien who is just good at building shit. I'm not too sure why but I really grew attached to him throughout the book and was genuinely pretty sad when the pair eventually had to part ways (temporarily). I liked the fact that humans were more technologically advanced than the Eridians, most of the time the Aliens are the more advanced ones so this was a nice change. Also their whole design of super dense rock spider thing that communicates through music is really unique, good job Andy :)

Ending was pretty satisfying, but I think it would've been nice to know more about the earth and how the fallout was during project hail mary.