REVIEW: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Becky Chambers)
Author: Becky Chambers
My rating: 2/5
Premise: When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. But the old worn ship offers her adventure and distance from her troubled past. Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime. They'll earn a lot of money... If they survive the long trip through war-torn space. But Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide.
I thought this book was going to be a sci-fi action/thriller, but found it was more character and theme led. I liked the idea of the book and the world created - there were some interesting alien species with thought provoking social norms. But for me, I found the book a tad bland. Everyone seemed to be playing happy families, which killed the little action there was. Also, as much as I'm all for diversity and inclusivity, I felt the author was trying to hard to include every single minority possible, to the point that it felt forced, which detracted from the story a tad. Personally, I'd liked to have seen more of the grittier side to this universe - the conflicting views and struggles endured; for me, that would've been more thought provoking and stimulated more discussion of the themes. My overall impression was that the book was trying to create a nice, warm, fuzzy, all inclusive, all accepting, idyllic world to pander to my generation's moral and values, but lacked depth and plot.