greystory's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Don't ask me to chart the narrative arc because I have no idea but I enjoyed this a lot. It was fun, lighthearted despite covering some heavy topics, had a great diverse cast (alien diversity, not intrahuman diversity), and good worldbuilding. Refreshing science fiction.

I cried for the last bit of the book and I did not see that coming. 

I have a feeling this is the kind of book that I'll catch myself thinking about weeks, months from now. I'll be talking about something or reading something else or watching a movie or whatever and I'm going to relate it back to this book.

I'm intrigued at the world Chambers has built here and I'm very interested to see more. I have so many questions and there are so many opportunities to explore of this universe. I'm happy to have the fortune of starting this series when there's a full four books available so I can dive right into the next one.

I own a physical copy of the book but ended up listening to the audiobook. The narration is great and I thought it added well to the personality of the characters. I think half the reason I found Kizzy to be so fun was the way she was voiced.

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective

4.0


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waqupi's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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foxclcves's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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loxeletters's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

This books left me with extremely mixed feelings.

First off, there were a few things I liked quite a bit: the sort of "mixed media" approach of including emails and news articles was fun, the world and cultures the author had created were interesting, and the writing style was simple and binge read-able.

That being said, I had some major gripes and for the first 80% I thought it was gonna be a 2.5 star at best. Most prominently, while I enjoyed the prose itself (except for some genre-typical infodumps), the storytelling decisions made in this book baffled me.  Most of the conflicts, relationships, and arcs set up for the characters developed and resolved quickly and/or off-page, whereas I found myself annotating over and over again: "This would have been impactful if it had been properly set up" for the conflicts that actually were explored on-page. 
The time skips seriously took me out of the story multiple times, especially since there is no in-text discussion of time passing.
Since we spend so little time getting to know the characters, I was unable to connect to most of them on any deeper level, especially the (intentionally) unlikeable ones, and this eliminated any emotional impact the first 3/4s of the book should've had. It was still a fun read! But I could tell in many scenes the author was trying to make things emotional or tense, while I just did not care. Certainly not enough to read pages worth of "tragic" backstory for a character that was supposed to be unlikeable less than ten pages ago. This really irked me.

The last 20% or so did kind of throw me for a loop, in that I suddenly did really connect with one emotional event, which I didn't expect. That is what made this book 3 stars for me, in the end. I did also appreciate the final ending, which wrapped up some ties very neatly.

Tldr: while this was an enjoyable and fun read, the narrative structure was bizarre and undermined the emotional impact of many scenes. However, the final conflict and ending surprised me positively in this regard.

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mobymaize's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Damn this shit is so good. I really like a sci-fi universe that is built around the people in it, and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet provides. :)

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melodyseestrees's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This story is best described as Cozy Sci-Fi. The vast majority of species' differences in cultures and believes are handled in a respectful manner. A character has a judgment about another species and then reminds themselves that they are holding this other character to standards that weren't made for them. There is one character who is the most unforgiving towards differences. There is not quite a justification for it but there is a reveal that this character had a difficult homelife. 
There is an upsetting but realistic terminal illness scene towards the last 20% of the book where one character is actively dying, the others are pressuring them to forsake their culture in order to live, and ultimately another character forces the choice upon them in misguided well-meaning. This is met with anger and indignation but ultimately treated as a good thing as the healing character decides to stay with the crew regardless of what their culture dictates they should do. 
I do wish three of the characters had been a little more present throughout the whole story but two of them become way more involved at the end of the story. The other one is removed entirely after an event and while I understand why I do wish they had been able to stay. 
The ending of this story is solid enough you could treat it as a standalone, even though it is part of a series.

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yikeslou's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i love this book too much for words so i'm simply going to say slayyyy bc it's what kizzy would want 

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tsukk's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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arinheck's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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