"They say that nobody can define you but you. So when Bear gave himself a new arm, he didn't do it because he didn't like the body he was born in, but because he felt that new arm fit better."
Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
Rosemary has just joined the crew of the Wayfarer, a ship that functions as a futuristic road-builder, punching holes in space-time to connect disparate parts of the united galaxy together to make transport over the vast emptiness of space possible. She's hiding / running away from something unspecified, but as it states on the blurb, she isn't the only member of the crew with a secret.
TLWTASAP, as no one is calling it, is one of those lower stakes stories that are very popular in the market at the moment. The book follows the crew as they take on a particularly lucrative contract to connect a remote alien star system that has decided to join the galactic confederation. There's no overarching existential threat, and not really much of an antagonist, although antagonistic characters do pop up from time to time. The enjoyment is supposed to come from the characters themselves, and while Rosemary is the first perspective you are introduced to, the reader comes to see through the eyes of every member of the Wayfarer, from the well-meaning captain Ashby, to the navigator Sissix from a reptilian species who are all a bit touchy-feely.
I enjoyed this for the most part, despite it being quite a bit different in tone and pacing than what I usually like reading, and I think it errs a bit on the YA side, so might be more suitable for teens. Chambers plays with some themes, such as AI-sentience, difficult families, and to a lesser extent identity, but these are more touched on than fully explored.
Indeed, the leading hook of Rosemary having a secret is kind of a collateral revelation, and doesn't effect the course of the plot in a big way, if you can say there is much of a central plot at all.
I don't think I'll ever love books like this, as I think I need a greater depth of motivations and the world being affected by character decisions in a way they aren't really in this book. But they have their place in fiction, and I think it's a decent book, and I'm not ruling out checking in on the next one at some stage.
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