The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet // Book Review [CC]
Hey everyone, it’s Stephanie, and welcome back to
my channel. Today I’m going to do a book review
for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky
Chambers. This is a sci fi book that was self
published in 2014 and picked up and traditionally
published in 2015. And it follows the story of
Rosemary, who is trying to get away from something
in her life. Through a series of circumstances,
she ends up accepting a job on this tunneling
ship, the Wayfarer. The Wayfarer creates portals
or wormholes to different planets or parts of
space. Shortly after accepting a position and
arriving on this ship, the crew of the Wayfarer
is offered this almost too good to be true
job or mission, and they accept because
the benefits are just so fantastic.
The characters are just really what made this book
in this world come alive. So we follow Rosemary,
the main character. We also have Ashby, who is
the captain of the ship, Sussex, who is the pilot,
Jenks and Kizzy, who are the ship’s engineers,
Dr. Chef, who is the ship’s chef and
doctor, and Corbin, who has kind of a complicated
job, but he’s in charge of things like fuel,
and making sure the ship has what
We also have Lovie who is an AI. And Ohan,
and they are the navigator. And I say they because
Ohan is a pair, so they go by they them pronouns.
Throughout the chapters, we really get to know
the characters. We see bits and pieces of their
backstories, and the nice thing about getting
some of these backstories is we get to explore a
lot of different issues. So not only do we have
interspecies relations, interspecies politics,
we have actual interspecies relationships. And
when I say in our species, I don’t mean like
here on Earth where it- yeah. but in space, you
have humanoid species, and then we have aliens or
non humanoid species. And this world, there’s so
many humans- were basically saved. They’re not on
earth anymore. So we have a great variety of alien
species. So a lot of the characters on the ship
they are not all human, and it was so cool
to see their interactions and their cultures
mixed together. For example, Sizzix comes from a
culture where touching isn’t always sexual. There,
it’s something they’re very comfortable
with and it doesn’t mean what it means
now, like she can just go up to Ashby, put her
head on his shoulder and pat his knee and it just
means she’s there for him. It’s nothing to look
into. Things like that. I just love them so much,
and it’s one of those things that reminded
me of that quote from The Fault in Our
Stars. And I’m so sorry for being cheesy
like this, but it said, “I fell in love
like you fall asleep: slowly and then all at
once.” And it really felt like that. In this book
you get bits and pieces of the characters
and each chapter kind of focuses
on one more than the other, and then next thing
you know, you’re just on the edge of your seat
because you don’t want anything to happen to your
babies and you love them so much. And when I first
heard about this book, the interspecies
relationships part, I was like,
What? I was talking to the people in my
book club because this is our January pick,
and they said, No, it’s not
what you think it’s actually
quite lovely. Don’t worry about it. It’s not
anything horrible, and they were right. It’s
actually- the relationships in this book are
quite lovely. I think it just goes to show
how wonderful love and tolerance and acceptance
are. It’s very well paced, in my opinion. I think
it’s a great, medium paced kind of book. Like
I said, the chapters are episodic, so you do
kind of have a slower build to the chapters. But
then action happens, and then in the downtime,
we get more time with the characters and see more
of their relationship. So I thought it was quite
wonderful. I wasn’t bored at all. I binged this
in three days. I did not want to put it down,
and it was one of those books where it’s like
work and real life are getting in the way of
my personal enjoyment of this book. The world
building is done in a subtle way. The way she
writes it and the dialogue between characters and
the descriptions- I thought were really well done.
It does not feel info dumpy at all. You just kind
of pick it up as you go, and I think part of that
is the setting for most of the book is in the
ship, the Wayfarer and space, not really on a
particular planet. It’s really contained, and
it’s mainly focused on the crew of the ship.
I will say I think, even though this book is
very hyped up, I think it earned that hype.
It’s one of those that was a really surprising
read, because I didn’t know if I’d like it as
much because I’m newer to sci fi. And it’s such
a beloved book, I was afraid I would not like it,
but I just fell in love with it. I immediately
borrowed the second book from the library.
I actually want to buy the series because I
just fell in love with this book, and I do
highly recommend the audiobook, which is how
I read most of it. The audio book narrator
does a great job of differentiating
their voice for different characters,
so it was very easy to follow who was speaking.
I didn’t find myself confused or questioning
who was speaking when I was listening to the
audiobook. Overall, wonderful world building,
lovely cultures and diverse characters that are
very fleshed out, well paced, wonderfully written,
space opera. Can’t go wrong with that. I gave
it five out of five stars. It was my favorite
book that I read this month, and it’s one of
those books that I think I will go back to
when I’m looking for a comfort read or I just
want something that I know I’m going to love.
So I highly, highly, highly recommend this book,
especially if you’re newer to sci fi. It was a
great intro book because I haven’t read that many
sci fi books. So go check it out. Have you read
this book? If so, let me know down below,
or if you just want to let me know you’re
here but you don’t have anything to add drop
some kind of space or planet emoji down below.
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watching, and I’ll see you guys next time. Bye!
