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kappafrog's review
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
I was curious about the anomaly, and that kept me reading. The best part about this book was the uniqueness of the anomaly. That idea was an interesting contribution to science fiction. (One thing that was left unexplained though: How could the anomaly be stationary in space, pointing to the same distant galaxy, if the Earth is constantly moving through space as it revolves around the sun?)
The rest of the book was unfortunately not very good. The science team was a militarized white man's club. The only major female character, Cathy, was introduced with two paragraphs about how she wished she was blonde. There are no female or POC scientists. We hear about what a great guy Teller is by teaching students of a variety of races (each one painstakingly specified), but the people actually working with the anomaly are all white. The book sometimes tried to be reflective about these issues (Cathy correcting the assumption the anomaly was a man, characters briefly entertaining the idea that the world protests against the USA controlling the research might have a point) but overall didn't do anything to disrupt that status quo. For example, Christopher Columbus is repeatedly cited as a great explorer, and Native peoples are present only in tired (and ultimately racist) analogies about communicating with aliens.
The romance was boring and sometimes laughably bad (all the descriptions of Cathy as "quirky" for example). Teller was a completely uninteresting main character until he finally got a bit of development at the very end of the book. The other characters were almost entirely indistinguishable. This book was recommended to me as an example of humanity puzzling with an alien anomaly, and it did mostly deliver on that, but I can't really recommend this book to others.
The rest of the book was unfortunately not very good. The science team was a militarized white man's club. The only major female character, Cathy, was introduced with two paragraphs about how she wished she was blonde. There are no female or POC scientists. We hear about what a great guy Teller is by teaching students of a variety of races (each one painstakingly specified), but the people actually working with the anomaly are all white. The book sometimes tried to be reflective about these issues (Cathy correcting the assumption the anomaly was a man, characters briefly entertaining the idea that the world protests against the USA controlling the research might have a point) but overall didn't do anything to disrupt that status quo. For example, Christopher Columbus is repeatedly cited as a great explorer, and Native peoples are present only in tired (and ultimately racist) analogies about communicating with aliens.
The romance was boring and sometimes laughably bad (all the descriptions of Cathy as "quirky" for example). Teller was a completely uninteresting main character until he finally got a bit of development at the very end of the book. The other characters were almost entirely indistinguishable. This book was recommended to me as an example of humanity puzzling with an alien anomaly, and it did mostly deliver on that, but I can't really recommend this book to others.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Blood, Gun violence, Car accident, Death, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Moderate: Gore, Kidnapping, Racism, Sexism, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Misogyny, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Fatphobia, Colonisation, Islamophobia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Genocide
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