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A review by kba76
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Possibly the shortest Booker nominated novel on the 2924 shortlist, but it was far from a quick reading experience. There’s no story to speak of, we simply follow a group of astronauts as they orbit the earth. Yet it was unusually compelling.
There’s very little here to hang onto. Characters are not particularly developed and nothing really happens to make you feel invested in their experience. There were some evocative descriptions of setting, and there are significant events happening on earth that we are privy to but feel rather detached from because the characters talking about them are, literally, outside the world that we inhabit.
This should be the kind of novel that I have read and move on from, but I found myself quite taken with the reflective tone of the book. As they orbit the earth, seeing its changing face from way outside anything we might experience, their thoughts naturally turn to those left behind and the experiences they are not sharing. The death of a mother or the daily life of a loved one, to cite two examples, show our need to connect and feel part of something.
Perhaps the most striking part of the book for me was the description of the earth and its changing landscapes, encouraging us to think about how we fit into a much larger picture.
There’s very little here to hang onto. Characters are not particularly developed and nothing really happens to make you feel invested in their experience. There were some evocative descriptions of setting, and there are significant events happening on earth that we are privy to but feel rather detached from because the characters talking about them are, literally, outside the world that we inhabit.
This should be the kind of novel that I have read and move on from, but I found myself quite taken with the reflective tone of the book. As they orbit the earth, seeing its changing face from way outside anything we might experience, their thoughts naturally turn to those left behind and the experiences they are not sharing. The death of a mother or the daily life of a loved one, to cite two examples, show our need to connect and feel part of something.
Perhaps the most striking part of the book for me was the description of the earth and its changing landscapes, encouraging us to think about how we fit into a much larger picture.