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Alex Leonard

alexleonard@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 months, 1 week ago

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reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey: Orbital (EBook, Grove Atlantic) 4 stars

A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize–winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation …

Disjointed with occasional lovely passages

2 stars

I was quite looking forward to this but came out disappointed. A lot more time seems to be spent on listing the places over which the ISS was currently flying, sometimes interspersed with some pleasing descriptions, but other times just feeling like a chore of describing yet another fly-over. The randomly jumping point of view and switching from one person's train of thought to another was also something I could have done without, and ultimately came out of it feeling like the characters were wholly undeveloped.

On the plus side there are some very nice passages scattered throughout, and some nice musings on life and meaning, but it just felt like the book was missing real substance to keep attention.

I often found myself semi-speed-reading through yet another listing of landmarks.

Your mileage may vary though as a lot of people seemed to like it!

Claire Dederer: Love and trouble (2017) 3 stars

"From the New York Times best-selling author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, …

Deeply personal and open

4 stars

Whilst I preferred Claire's following book, Monsters, this was still a good read. At times laugh-out-loud funny, at other times extremely saddening, it always felt incredibly honest and open.