Relic

It's an absolute shame that this book came out after Artemis because I feel like that book drove a lot of Weir's fans away. He excels at writing one, mid-tier intelligence, white-bread-interesting type guy getting stuck in space, and he returned to that for Project Hail Mary and nailed it. He keeps the hard science fiction in his writing but makes it approachable for any audience with at least a high-school understanding of how space works. Project Hail Mary is a page-turner and very satisfying to read.

An often bittersweet task approached in a friendly way. This book was gently uplifting and oddly refreshing to read.

The way the main character just... keeps going to work even though the world is ending outside... me too girl. But also, reading this book post-2020 was haunting. I feel like it's hard to find fiction that doesn't automatically paint a pandemic-related-apocalypse as an action hero zombie event. Ling Ma does a very good job of keeping it fresh.

This book changed my brain chemistry. As someone who grew up in a small town and moved to another small town in Northeast Ohio, the depictions of all the people and places mentioned were spot on. The drama is so real and unfortunately believable. The characters are complex, lovable at some times and hatable at others. It was easy to think of who I knew in high school and compare them to each of the high schoolers in the book. I could read another 500 pages about Bill. Vivid depictions of war, violence, trauma, sexual assault, and self harm, but that's life.

Weir excels at one-guy-in-space fiction. This was not that.