Travis

The story was just kind of meh, but I didn't mind because it was short and the setting, premise, and characters were all interesting enough to keep me into it through the end. It made me want more hippo adventures from the characters, particularly Archie and Adelia. High marks for having diverse characters as well!

Heartbreaking and beautiful, and a great primer for The Calculating Stars.

Fantastic mix of Seveneves and Hidden Figures, and the audio version is by the author herself. Highly recommended!

I really wanted to like this; the premise and story itself were great. But the endless quips, non-sequitur side anecdotes, and rambling analogies that go on and on and on really got old after a bit. It's like the author has a case of Ryan Reynolds syndrome combined with a huge helping of Peter Jackson “throw everything I can possibly think of into this” lack of restraint. It's funny stuff, but about half of it could've been cut out and the book would be more streamlined and better paced. We get it, Catherynne, you're witty. Just dial it back a notch.

If this doesn't sound like something that would bother you, then by all means you could absolutely love this book. And in that case I'd like to recommend the audio version. The narrator is fantastic. Heath is a perfect fit for this kind of silly story, and handles the many alien voices, accents, and dialects very well. Enough so that it made the more rambling bits a little less annoying.

Didn't like it as much the second time around. The main character was a bit annoying; at one point she herself says admits she acts like a twit a lot of the time, and I agreed. The story and premise are still really interesting.

I listened to the audio version this time, and have mixed thoughts on the narrator. She was good at the voices and accents, but everything she read that wasn't dialogue was done in the exact same cadence. I noticed it pretty early on and it was very distracting. It was so bad that by the time I got to the halfway point that cadence started to bleed into the way I was reading the print book I was reading at the time.

Disappointed I didn't care for this as much as I remembered; still don't plan to read the sequel. But there was enough about it I enjoyed that I'm glad I went back to it all the same.