A review by dynamicdevon
The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

emotional reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

Lush, romantic writing. Characters whom we get to see deepen their relationship even after they've gotten together. Art and science and craft as art. The slow healing of trauma through tenderness and creating a safe haven together. Sticking it to misogyny in science. Beautiful quotes. I couldn't put it down. Even though I don't care for the trope towards the end, it was soon over and didn't detract much. 

Catherine's youth was long past, and she wasn't sure she had anything to show for it but a handful of heartbreak. 

Every generation had women stand up and ask to be counted - and every generation of brilliant, insightful, educated men has raised a hand and wiped those women's names from the greater historical record.

There was nothing truly vital in it, nothing nourishing to the heart or the mind or the soul. When I look back, the wonder is not that we parted - it's that we managed to hold on as long as we did.

So I started thinking: maybe being an artist is also really about the work. It's not about standing up and trumpeting one's own genius to a throng of adoring inferiors, agog with admiration. Maybe an artist is simply one who does an artist's work, over and over. A process, not a paragon.