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I don't think this book has any sentence that doesn't have a figure of speech (similes mostly). It has to be breaking some kind of record.

I'm curious about what exactly happened and what lives in that house, but the writing is extremely grating: this author cannot, for her life, write a sentence without a metaphor or comparison of some kind. Talk about overwritten. This is ridiculous! I think I might have to DNF and just look up a summary...

Ok, getting the hang of the writing, which really could use an editor: there are word repetitions, unclear pronoun reference and at times questionable use of conjunctions... and just general lack of smoothness, with things being moved from then referenced again within a few sentences, breaking the expected flow of ideas. It's not terrible writing, it's just unpolished and needing an editor.

(I promise I am not a hater, I actually try to like books I pick, I swear T_T

I'm just unlucky this year it seems)

This is rapidly devolving into some sort of aged and privileged brand of optimism that reeks a bit of some rich westerner comfily looking at a world map and their nice collection of geopolitical essays, in their living room, and feeling very certain that they know how everything could be so much better for the world, you see, if only they could explain it to everyone and save them all.

Oh man, Bush-era white american boy tackling the question of reparations, but pretending the rebuke and call to forget feelings is coming from a Chilean man.

I liked the first, modern chapter (which was kept a bit more contained by its abundance of dialogue) but when the book goes into the past, the writing escapes into an abundance of overdone lyricism and try-hard similes that add nothing. This is disappointing: we had a good premise. Going to give this more time and see if the author manages to reign it in.

I was liking it so far but I'm increasingly getting tired of the over the top, American flavored, optimism and this "the end justifies the means" outlook, honestly. Maybe once we go back to the global chapters we can let up a bit on the "but they got up and saved the day" Hollywood-like arc that the Home Front USA chapters are.

(Very) Early Piranesi vibes in the relationship of the sisters to their whale/house.

Irrespective of anything, I am just very excited about this book!!

Surprisingly sweet with its developing friendships (I won't say found family just yet and because the group is probably not big enough to qualify, but we're close!)

This is not dilly-dallying :o
Great so far, the author is blending noir and hard SF in this like he's always been doing so (though tbf I think there were noir elements in a few of his past books already). Really hard to put down!

p.6: Yuri Gargarin as a private investigator, on a generation ship, investigating a Romeo and Juliet hommage of a case
p.39: do we have a robot?
p.46: more robots!!
p.54: is this a Blade Runner type situation?

An ambitious start and I'm here for this!

Ok, here for this Ms. Nagg development, but can she please make it up to the Grimalkin in those last few percents?? 😭

I have continued with this - I don't know if I should have. I was curious about the plot (it's not without imperfection, but it's catching + the book makes for a light and fast read, so I felt more inclined to keep at it)... still can't get over the amateur writing though, both in style and content (SF bits, character building, interactions, etc.)

I was too slow and the audiobook was returned before I could finish this, but I have been liking it a lot so far! Mostly due to very loveable characters. There were some corners that were cut a bit short and a few details that could have been polished, but overall it's been a real pleasure, and I have been consuming way too much tea because of this!!!

I think I'll have to DNF. The story is piquing my curiosity, but the writing is just so amateur. It's clumsy introducing characters, clumsy making references to their past (we get into the story when half of it already happened, so this is all the time), clumsy with dialogues... I like the content enough though it feels like a made up word, rather than "photonic", would have helped, as this makes zero sense as is ^^

I'm barely 10 pages in, but the writing is pretty bad? Introductions of characters are clunky, comparisons/contrasts made to reflect on the past/current situation that are just silly, characters and their pairing that seem incredibly uninspired... yeah in just 10 pages. I'm going to stick with this a bit more to see if I'm being too harsh on what's just a different style, but feeling a bit baffled right now.

I'm having a hard time buying Rory's turn into a controlling person - on paper, with his past, it makes a lot of sense... but as it unfolds before the reader's eyes, I feel it's a bit more of a set destination for him than an organic development?

Also, for a book that spend so much time trying to describe nature in a very sensorial way, how does it have so little of an actual sense of place??

This is a tragic story of love and dependence more than it is horror, and tbh at this point I don't wish it to go full horror as it doesn't seem to fit with the characters, as they have been so far...

There is not amount of liking the main character and chuckling along that can balance the annoyance Six causes in me. I dislike her so very much, but since the book doesn't seem to mean for me to be feeling that way, I can't even enjoy hating her T_T

So far, it's all been pretty twee. I am assuming we are going somewhere with this, but it's not a fast development (though I think we are seeing the first seeds of darker things to come).

It's a fairly binomial type of worldbuilding: interesting society glimpsed in the faraway background + minimal cast floating there in a bubble at the front. No in between. It's not bad, but it doesn't do interrogating it too much.

I honestly like the book but the dialogues are just painful (respective inner monologues are fine, but man, the moment they all decide to talk... 😭)

Also listening to the audio book and I wish the narrators would let up on the accents or, at minimum, that they had agreed on which accent to give each character -_-

Reviews warn that this is on the cozy side, so I went into it with that expectation... and proceeded to get hit with a creepily cannibalized solar system as the background, a bounty hunter who, while not needlessly cruel, does use his gun to get shit done, and the early (gory!) death of a young crew member.

Ok. I mean, I must be softening with age or something, but call me crazy, I've seen cozier ^^

It reads like an anime series and I don't know if I want to read a novelization of an anime (or manga for that matter). On the other hand, true to the media it isn't, there's a wholeheartedness to it that's refreshing: it cares, there's no reluctance throwing everything into the story it tells - which I do love.

This should be an anime, it has basically all the codes of a large cast, paired-servant type of series.

I love her, but Mehrab could stand being a tad more type A about all this ^^

Really sold on Slatter's writing and her characterization work so far! <3

This is not great.
What it has to say about being a teenage girl and about death/grief is trivial at best. The romantic aspect reads like a very cliché romantasy one (power imbalance dynamic with a taller, older, brooding, patronizing love interest that makes our MC feels like she needs to deserve their attention). And I am seeing the big reveal come a miles away as to who Roslyn is going to have to kill... sigh

So this book is fine... until a woman comes along (Jeanne d'Arc or Livia, for now) -> the moment anything feminine walks onto the pages, it apparently cannot resist the compulsion of its dudebro fantasy niche, starts foaming at the mouth, and turns entirely demeaning.

"but that was of the times" -> not when the story and its stupid footnotes keeps reminding the reader that it is being told by a contemporary narrator

Ok, we're starting with a sexist joke, cool. After a self-important prologue might I add.

Either the story is going to call out the ass of a protagonist we are given (and it better be made clear soon) or I feel this is going to have a very short shelf life in my house.