Reese > Recent Status Updates

A buttload of pop culture references, an asshole and lame excuse of a man, and some Christmassy vibes

The plot summary basically summarizes everything I’ve read thus far so it’s a good thing I didn’t read that before

Vianne’s husband, Antoine, got conscripted as a soldier in WWII. They have a daughter, Sophie, after they miscarried three times. Please, I hope he comes home.

Vianne’s mother died when she was young. Her father was distant after he returned from the war. Drank, kept to himself, and ignored the family. After her death, he abandoned his children, Vianne and her little sister Isabelle.

Who is Juliette Gervaise?

The only person who ever protected me was Savvy

Aw

K so Emmett killed Sav then tried to kill Lucy. Matt found them all and believed Emmett’s lie that Lucy killed Sav. Matt told her parents who also believed the lie. They withheld this from the police to protect her

Ew gross he forced himself onto Lucy after she said no. She and Savvy were planning to move to LA together but he went and ruined it all. He’s deffos the killer. AND HE’S AN ABUSER TOO

THIS BOOK IS NOTHING BUT ABUSERS AND CHEATERS

So Emmett is rude, mean, and disrespectful. Slept with Savvy and tried to hook up with Lucy while she was still married (her husband was an abusive, cheating asshole too so whatever) But why are all the men trash in this book I had hope for Emmett.

Hope Ben doesn’t turn out to be bad too

Now we can add Nina to the list of cheaters

Okay wait but I kind of like Lucy and Ben together. Please don’t be a bad guy Ben pls pls

Also I’m so over this book. I just want it to be finished already

MURPHY’S FUCKING LAW

THE FARMS AREN’T LEAKING BUT IN BREEDING NITROGEN RESISTANT TAUMOEBAS, THEY EVOLVED TO SURVIVE BY SNEAKING IN BETWEEN THE MOLECULES OF XENONITE.

RYLAND CAN CONTAIN IT IN GLASS OR METAL OR PLASTIC BUT ROCKYS ENTIRE SHIP IS MADE OF XENONITE. THERES NOTHING STANDING BETWEEN HIS TAUMOEBA AND HIS FUEL I’M GOING TO CRY POOR ROCKY PLEASE WE HAVE TO SAVE HIM

I really hope bros breeding containers or whatever the Taumoebas are kept in are sealed now that he’s gassing the entire cabin at 100% nitrogen. Please no more Murphy’s law

Of course genius engineer Rocky! He melts spare metal parts from his ship and built extra and even more efficient tanks for Ryland so he can go home.

They say their goodbyes. Rocky says they can meet again but that was before he found out about the human lifespan.

UGH I’M CRYING OVER A DOG-SIZED ALIEN SPIDER I HATE IT HERE. NOW THEY’RE BOTH GONNA BE ALONE ON THEIR JOURNEY HOME IM SOBBING

Up to Taumoeba-62 now! Ryland tried scrubbing the engines and gassed it with nitrogen to kill remaining Taumoebas but two of the engines won’t clean. He jettisoned them so there’s only 6/9 tanks remaining.

The trip home will take 5.5 years and he won’t have enough food to last since it was supposed to be a suicide mission. Rocky’s foods are heavy metal

Like antibiotics, they slowly cultivate nitrogen-resistant Taumoebas at increasing nitrogen percentages so they can survive in Venus (3.5%) and Threeworld (8%). Taumoeba-35 is successful and they make it back to Blip-A! They agree to exchange a laptop for xenonite.

“Modifying an alien life form. What could possibly go wrong?” Famous last words… I’m so scared please give a happy ending to Rocky and Ryland

“‘Yes yes. I make now. We are team. We fix this. No be sad.’ He skitters down the tunnel toward the dormitory.”

I LOVE ROCKY HE’S SO SMART AND CUTE AND GENUINE AND WHOLESOME 🥺🥺🥺

THEY FUCKING DRAGGED HIM ONTO THE HAIL MARY AGAINST HIS WILL AND THEN GAVE HIM FRENCH AMNESIA INTERROGATION DRUGS SO THAT HE WOULD FORGET. THATS WHY HE COULDN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING, NOT BECAUSE OF THE COMA OH MY GOD STRATT IS TERRIBLE

Oh also the Taumoeba won’t grow on Venus or Three-world so they’re screwed! They can live in the engine tank though so I feel like they’re just missing a variable. I have faith

This gotta be Murphy’s Law because how is anything and everything going wrong!?! They extracted the predator coined “Taumoeba” but it freaking escaped and went to eat the FUEL TANK ASTROPHAGE so the entire ship loses power and both generators are down.

Ryland has to go grab Astrophage from the beetles thru EVA so Rocky can make a new engine to thrust them back to his ship. Rocky’s a genius tbh

Builds a device to extract the sample from the box without exposing it other temperatures/pressures. Rocky is so smart and can build anything!

We learn that there was an Astrophage explosion nine days before launch that killed the primary and secondary science specialists that were selected for Project Hail Mary. But we already knew something happened to them because Ryland is on it duh

Got the sample but the heat from IR reflecting off the atmosphere burned a hole in the engine and the Astrophages were propelling towards the planet to breed. Rocky sacrifices himself to save Ryland and loses consciousness I THOUGHT BRO DIED AND I WAS ABOUT TO RAGE QUIT but luckily he survived. Ryland brought him back to his side and got badly burned by hot pressurized ammonia. Rocky recovers and builds

Rocky wanted to eat in private but for science, he let Ryland observe. He defecates and eats using the same orifice and then immediately gets paralyzed and sleeps kind of like a food coma.

They discover that Erids and humans are vaguely vaguely related. OH AND ROCKY HAS A BUNCH OF EXTRA ASTROPHAGES SO RYLAND CAN GO HOME! YIPEE! Cause Erids didn’t know about time dilation and relativity (I’m confused too tbh)

Reached ‘Adrian’ (named after Rocky’s mate) the breeding planet with the Petrova line. They collect a sample and determine that there must be an Astrophage predator. If they isolate and breed it, it’ll solve their problem. But they can’t get a sample because they’ll burn the atmosphere if they get too close. They making a 10km long chain to get a sample

Not immunity. Rocky is an engineer and spent most of his time in his work room near the engine so he was surrounded by Astrophage. He had protection, his crewmates didn’t.

He takes a moment to let that sink in. Aw he must feel so sad, poor dog-sized alien spider.

Oh and Astrophage provide radiation protection so the Hail Mary is surrounded by it. The Blip-A doesn’t have any protection, they didn’t even know what radiation was. Rocky must have some sort of immunity since he’s the only one who survived

More lore building — deliberately emitting greenhouse gases to buy more time and paving 2 trillion square meters of the Sahara Desert to scale Astrophage breeding for fuelling the Hail Mary

They’ve expanded their vocabulary and can communicate in sentences. Rocky is the only one on his ship, the rest died from radiation sickness. He wants Ryland to observe him while he sleeps. It helps him sleep better aw

The alien is a SPIDER!?! I was initially grossed out but he/she/it is kinda cute! Ryland calls it Rocky. Their atmospheric pressure is 29x Earth’s, they don’t need light, they breathe ammonia, and they have 5 arm/legs with 3 fingers and brown-black rock-like skin. They exchange clocks and we learn their numbers (it only goes up to 6) and these spider aliens talk using musical notes 🎶

He calls it’s doohickey’s which I think is funny

The aliens sent a cylinder made of xenon which makes no sense bc that’s a noble gas but alien tech! We find out that the aliens (coined Eridians by Ryland) are from a planet orbiting 40 Eridani (basically their star version of the sun). He sends it back telling them he’s from Sol (our sun star) and they send it back! This time it’s a diagram of both their ships connected basically saying they want to meet!!!

Upon reaching Tau Ceti’s orbit, the engine turns off along with the artificial gravity so Ryland is now floating in zero-g! He throws up in his space suit. It’s been at least 3 years since he left Earth but bc time dilation, it’s probably been longer on Earth. He has coma-resistant genes. Astrophages fed on Tau Ceti, he wants to collect samples but an ALIEN SPACESHIP APPEARED and he swore for the first time!!

Astrophage absorbs energy and emits it to accelerate or propel itself so humans mass produce it to use as fuel for the Hail Mary spacecraft to travel to another solar system twelve light years away. Tau Ceti is a star like the sun. Astrophages are infecting all the surrounding stars except Tau Ceti. Project Hail Mary is a suicide mission that seeks to explore why that is and send this information back to Earth

Deemed “Astrophages” (organisms that exist on a diet of stars), they consume energy from the sun, store it, and use it for propulsion.

Our MMC, Ryland/Ryan Gosling discovers he is in a different solar system with a different sun because its rotation is ten times faster than the Earth’s sun.

I really like this so far. Very sciencey and I feel a tad bit dumb, but I find that these always end up being my faves

Ryland Grace, science teacher, was recruited to investigate the sample of moving dots collected from Venus where the Petrova line (originating from the sun) is as wide as the whole planet. The dimming sun is correlated with the population growth of this alien life form. He wrote a thesis on how certain life forms don’t require water to evolve so they “hired” him to join the team of scientists and researchers