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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It is a book explosively loaded with adjectives. So much detail on a bunch of alien species that my brain matter struggled to keep up.
But it is a glorious read. Pointed and bittersweet commentary on humanity’s failings, mixed in with a David Bowie meets Klaus from Umbrella Academy, with sparkling rainbow dust from a million sobbing unicorns.
I look forward to reading it again!
But it is a glorious read. Pointed and bittersweet commentary on humanity’s failings, mixed in with a David Bowie meets Klaus from Umbrella Academy, with sparkling rainbow dust from a million sobbing unicorns.
I look forward to reading it again!
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I seriously enjoyed this space romp. I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any songs but the audio delivery was still superb. A super fun read with only the entirety of earth hanging in the balance.
adventurous
challenging
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
If you enjoy Douglas Adams then don't read this atrocity. The fun part about the Hitchhiker's guide is that Douglas was witty at reasonable times and places throughout a story, and it flowed at a reasonable pace. The author of Space Opera tried way too hard to make every sentence, every conversation, and concept witty and funny with run on sentences and long side tangents. At one point it took almost 4 pages to complete a single story thought plot line that should have taken a paragraph. Don't get me wrong I love the ironies of Douglas Adams and funny side tangents, but this book was too much. It's like watching a sequel to a good movie. The sequel just takes the few parts that everyone loved of the first one and then just smashed in those parts over and over and over and over again until you wish you were dead. Also on my own side tangent this story was just a rip off of the "get schwifty" Rick and Morty episode from 2015.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Reminds me of Douglas Adam's, but trying to be sincere-mostly succeeding.
This book has reduced me to tears and an overwhelming awe for the cinema, the aesthetic, the rock that is deeply woven in this book. It is the biggest feelings emblazoned in the flashiest pyrotechnicolor music show of all time followed by the darkest, vertigo-inducing silence of philosophical post-show shock and then universe-rattling applause.
I have never read a book like this before (having never read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). It is as entrancing as it is overwhelming. I say this lovingly as I stopped so many times to note beautiful prose, hilarious jokes, to think on the truths poured into this book, and to digest the mind-bending world-building (universe-building, really) that takes place here.
It is a tribute to the weirdos and the outcasts striving to find their footing and worth in the world. One of my favorite parts of this book actually comes from the Liner Notes, “And while I am thanking ghosts and declaring patron saints of my own novel like it’s a little baby heading off into a cold and unfeeling world, which obviously it is, the glam-elephant in the punk-rock room will always be David Bowie, our most beloved space oddity… Whenever two or more of us are gathered to devote ourselves more ardently to our weirdest personal aesthetic than anything else in the world, he is there.” I have never felt so comforted and supported to just be a weirdo with a devotion to myself and my aesthetic, whatever that entails. Because that’s what shines brightest in the deepest of space. That truth of self. That rawness that cannot help but to rock.
In the Liner Notes, Valente states, “[Navah Wolfe, my editor,] also deserves much consideration for her patience while I wrote something so far outside my comfort zone as to be more teenage runaway than novel.” It’s a revelation that is both surprising and expected given this book’s originality. This book has all of Valente’s genius and beautiful writing, and it is pushed farther than anything I have read of hers before. It makes sense that this is “outside her comfort zone,” but it almost feels truer to the self because of that. That pushing beyond what you find comfortable leads you to find the honest and weird stories that crack open the universe into glittering, iridescent truth.
I don’t always read the Acknowledgements section, but I felt this book deserved it. To have a moment of taking bows and thanking the lighting crew and costuming department and spouses and sweetest pets who were a part of it all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
The one thing I will note is that it can be a challenge to keep all of the alien species straight in the mind. A list of the aliens and their characteristics would have greatly helped my reading as I tried to picture characters accurately to previous descriptions. From doing some Googling, “Second Brickfast,” Lego Fanart by Rick Martin has a wonderful list with Lego representations.
I think some readers may find the world building too weird or too extensive (meandering from the current plot to introduce more aliens, more worlds, more past performances). However, I felt it was all very informative. To paint that history, to illustrate other key players in this competition, to really make humanity feel small and inconsequential and off balance. The scope of everything raises the stakes.
Some readers may also find the sex in this book to be a bit off-putting. Even if just regarding Goguenar Gorecannon’s most controversial Unkillable Fact: The Fourteenth Special which is about how “Everybody fucks.” It has the caveat of “Well, almost everybody” and the prose later states, “There are, naturally, a few asexual species, and they do seem to get a lot more done in a day, but even they give it a try once in while, just to see what all of the fuss is about, before shrugging and going back to grounding their self-esteem in concrete accomplishments and finding fulfillment in skills and hobbies like the twisted kinksters they are.” I personally find this book to be very sex-positive and inclusive, but I can imagine this may make other readers a bit uncomfortable.
Regardless, I cannot sing enough praises for this book, so everyone simply must also read it and join the chorus.
I have never read a book like this before (having never read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). It is as entrancing as it is overwhelming. I say this lovingly as I stopped so many times to note beautiful prose, hilarious jokes, to think on the truths poured into this book, and to digest the mind-bending world-building (universe-building, really) that takes place here.
It is a tribute to the weirdos and the outcasts striving to find their footing and worth in the world. One of my favorite parts of this book actually comes from the Liner Notes, “And while I am thanking ghosts and declaring patron saints of my own novel like it’s a little baby heading off into a cold and unfeeling world, which obviously it is, the glam-elephant in the punk-rock room will always be David Bowie, our most beloved space oddity… Whenever two or more of us are gathered to devote ourselves more ardently to our weirdest personal aesthetic than anything else in the world, he is there.” I have never felt so comforted and supported to just be a weirdo with a devotion to myself and my aesthetic, whatever that entails. Because that’s what shines brightest in the deepest of space. That truth of self. That rawness that cannot help but to rock.
In the Liner Notes, Valente states, “[Navah Wolfe, my editor,] also deserves much consideration for her patience while I wrote something so far outside my comfort zone as to be more teenage runaway than novel.” It’s a revelation that is both surprising and expected given this book’s originality. This book has all of Valente’s genius and beautiful writing, and it is pushed farther than anything I have read of hers before. It makes sense that this is “outside her comfort zone,” but it almost feels truer to the self because of that. That pushing beyond what you find comfortable leads you to find the honest and weird stories that crack open the universe into glittering, iridescent truth.
I don’t always read the Acknowledgements section, but I felt this book deserved it. To have a moment of taking bows and thanking the lighting crew and costuming department and spouses and sweetest pets who were a part of it all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
The one thing I will note is that it can be a challenge to keep all of the alien species straight in the mind. A list of the aliens and their characteristics would have greatly helped my reading as I tried to picture characters accurately to previous descriptions. From doing some Googling, “Second Brickfast,” Lego Fanart by Rick Martin has a wonderful list with Lego representations.
I think some readers may find the world building too weird or too extensive (meandering from the current plot to introduce more aliens, more worlds, more past performances). However, I felt it was all very informative. To paint that history, to illustrate other key players in this competition, to really make humanity feel small and inconsequential and off balance. The scope of everything raises the stakes.
Some readers may also find the sex in this book to be a bit off-putting. Even if just regarding Goguenar Gorecannon’s most controversial Unkillable Fact: The Fourteenth Special which is about how “Everybody fucks.” It has the caveat of “Well, almost everybody” and the prose later states, “There are, naturally, a few asexual species, and they do seem to get a lot more done in a day, but even they give it a try once in while, just to see what all of the fuss is about, before shrugging and going back to grounding their self-esteem in concrete accomplishments and finding fulfillment in skills and hobbies like the twisted kinksters they are.” I personally find this book to be very sex-positive and inclusive, but I can imagine this may make other readers a bit uncomfortable.
Regardless, I cannot sing enough praises for this book, so everyone simply must also read it and join the chorus.