I FINALLY READ THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET!

 

Now this is a book that lives up to the hype!

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is about a group of space travelers in a spaceship called the Wayfarer who have been selected to create a space tunnel between two planets that recently had a war with each other in hopes to bring peace. The setting is in the far future where Earth has become mostly inhabitable and many humans have left Earth to go live on other planets (mostly Mars). Those humans are called Exodans, by the way. However, the real focus of the story is about the relationships (friendship, family, and romantic) between our main space traveling team and the wordbuilding as they visit and talk about many different planets along the way.

The cast is as follows: Rosemary, a human from Mars who gets to work on the Wayfarer as a clerk and is trying to escape her dark past. Then there's Ashby, another human who is the stern but kind captain of the Wayfarer, and is in a relationship with the captain of another ship, an Aeulon (a type of robot-looking alien) named Pei. Then we have Kizzy and Jenks, the maintenance workers of the ship who have a sort of brother-sister like relationship. Kizzy is very energetic and silly but great at her job, and Jenks is a lot more mature but still friendly, and he really likes the AI program of the ship, named Lovey, and dreams of making her a humanoid robot. Then there's Corbin, who takes care of the fuel of the ship, which is algae. Corbin is the most grumpy, cynical member of the crew but even he mellows out as the story goes on. Then there is Sissix, she is an friendly Aandrisk (another alien with a lizard-like appearance, but don't call them lizards!) who is also the pilot. There is also Dr. Chef, who is, yes, the doctor and the chef of the ship. He is a Grum, which is another alien with gopher-like appearance. He's also really sweet. Lastly, there is Ohan, who is the navigator and another alien called a Sianat Pair. They have a condition where they are good at navigating, but they also have a short lifespan. 

There's also several other friends and allies (and equally enemies and foes) the whole crew meets and already has along the way who all contribute something to the story, but I'd thought I'd just give you a run down of our main crew. 

This was such a great book! I had seen it all over the bookish spaces I follow and finally got around to reading it, and it was worth it! Every character in this book was so interesting and so well rounded, I almost didn't want to stop reading about them and the things that they do. I might be repeating myself here a little when I say this: It is still a story with an end goal of the crew creating a space tunnel for political purposes, it's really character-driven, and really one of the best character-driven stories I've read in a while. 

There is also great representation in the book! For example, the majority of the human characters are people of color, Kizzy has two dads, Jenks has dwarfism, another group of aliens use neopronouns, and Rosemary and Sissix end up in a sapphic relationship. Very diverse. 

I gave it 4.5 stars, but that's just because it took me a while to understand all of the worldbuilding (different planets, aliens, intergalactic politics, etc.) in story at first. Other than that, the story was awesome! It definitely rekindled my love for sci-fi books, just like Cosmoknights did. 

What's the last book you read that lived up to the hype?