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I am sorry but this book was so mid. I finished it quickly as it was engaging in the first few chapters, and also short, but it was so repetitive and droning.
I first settled on buying it after a youtuber I watched recommended it to the audience. I must say that I was sadly very influenced, as she was a very cute girl and also well-read; with her camera displaying a fully stocked in-house library. My expectations were raised too high and I went in expecting an elaborate book describing the intricacies of space and time, which I also feel I did not get from this read.
To begin, I liked the narrative pacing of Chie’s story as well as the other’s backgrounds and how their work on the ship relates to it. When I realized it spanned over a single day, I felt even more sympathy and sadness for Chie. It was the first day that she realized her mother died and she had already felt such a broad range of emotions, and at times, emptiness. I also liked Shaun and Nell, and Roman was cute in his yearning for his wife. Anton’s decision to leave his wife as he was in a loveless marriage was also quite a sad chapter section, as to come to that realization in space must be difficult.
I also found it beautiful in the way their dreams featured one another in little ways due to the fact that they’re so close. There are certain things you don’t think about in space, and having their dreams explore that — such as with Nell and Roman — was soothing.
However, beyond the characters, the general waxing poetic about space and Wikipedia knowledge I could find from a single look-up got on my nerves so bad. At certain points I think 65-80% of the chapters were just that for like, 4 pages. I eventually could skip whole pages and would miss nothing story-wise. It got old really quickly. I suppose this makes sense (the repetitive nature) given the title of the book, but the author already accomplishes this with the cycles of the weather as well as sleep and wake in the book, so I felt it was either unintentional or unnecessary. I don’t know, it was just really boring.