The Astral Library

I picked up Kate Quinn's newest book, The Astral Library, thanks to the contest Chapters/Indigo was having; if you pre-ordered it, you were entered into a contest to win a trip to P.E.I. I knew I wanted to read The Astral Library at some point, as I like Quinn's books and was interested in what she would do in the fantasy genre, so I pre-ordered it. I sadly did not win the contest, but I got a great book out of the deal. :)

The Astral Library is the story of Alix Watson, a young woman struggling through life. She was abandoned by her mom at the age of 8 into the foster care system. Having aged out of the system, she's now struggling to survive: holding down multiple jobs, only about $36 to her name, late on rent payments, and desperately trying to price out the groceries she can afford. But when her card gets declined at the grocery store, she loses her most steady job, has no hours at another job, is getting evicted from her apartment, and seems to be the victim of identity fraud, things look bleak. But then she steps through a door at the Boston Public Library and enters the magical Astral Library, where she's given the chance to live in a book. But as she readies herself for her new adventure, the Librarian receives word that some of the Astral Library's other Patrons are under attack. Alix tags along (much to the Librarian's chagrin) as they hop from book to book, looking for the other Patrons to bring them to safety.

I will admit: the first two chapters are a bit rough to read: it was crazy depressing going along with Alix as her world blew up. But once you get to the actual Library, the book really takes off. The characters are a lot of fun, especially the Librarian, the Gallerist (the curator of the Astral Gallery), and the Programmer (the guardian of AGNIS - the Astral Gaming Network Interspace System). I also really liked how people were able to move through books, paintings and games (and the differences between them). Some things were a tad predictable (like how the library had a perfect set-up for Beau), but others caught me by surprise (like who the villain ended up being). 

After I got through the first two chapters, I didn't really want to put The Astral Library down. It's a really fun story that I recommend for anyone who loves libraries. :)

Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

I, like many people nowadays, have been feeling super burnt-out by like everything. So when I stumbled on Anne Helen Petersen's Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, I was hoping it would be helpful, shedding light on why I feel this way.

Well, the short answer is that life sucks for everyone (particularly in the United States, which is where Petersen lives and is writing about). I thought this book was really good at showing how things have changed over time for everyone (not just millennials): companies have reduced good salaried jobs in favour of hiring more temp workers (aka freelancers), everyone is expected to work more and more hours (and that corresponds to less and less leisure time), people are afraid they will socially move downwards (out of the middle class), and, thanks to social media, people are now performing their lives rather than actually living them. But I thought the book was less good at showing how any of this was specific to millennials. Sure, many millennials were trying to start work during the 2008 recession, making it very difficult to make money, especially when many of them were struggling with student debt. And some millennials (younger ones in particular - this was not at all my experience) were raised in heavily scheduled ways, where everything they did was organized and often in hopes of being a good point for a college application. But these are things that are transcending any one generation. Millennials are parenting their own children in the same way. People of other generations had difficulties finding jobs in the recession. College tuition is even more expensive now than it was when millennials were attending, so younger generations will have even bigger debts. So, while I found this to be a largely informative read regarding the history of jobs in America over the last forty or fifty years, that was all it really was. The book also offers little in the way of solutions (the final chapter admits as much), which is rather unfortunate; it might have served as a rallying cry had there been more than just historical fact.

While, in some ways, I didn't really relate to the things Petersen was specifically mentioning, being an older millennial from Canada, I will admit that there were some areas of the book that really made me stop and consider my own life. One that particularly stood out to me was how everyone seems to feel pressure to monetize their hobbies (which was also kind of top of mind for me after watching Ryan George's video on the same topic just a few days before reading the chapter) instead of just enjoying them. That really made me stop and think.

So if you're looking for an interesting primer on how the working world has changed over the last few decades (particularly in corporate America), while a bit depressing, Can't Even is worth the read. 

Though I will admit, I was annoyed at the grammatical errors in the book - there were a number of places where there were extra words, making sentences a little nonsensical on first read.

Automatic Noodle

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz sounded like a super fun read. A group of robots wake up after being deactivated for a few months in the restaurant they were working in. They decide to open their own restaurant, even though they know they're technically not allowed to own property or businesses (or even own a bank account). So with the help of one of their human friends from before they were deactivated and a sentient car, they decide to start making the best hand-pulled noodles they can. But after some anti-robot activists get wind of their restaurant and start review-bombing them, how will their restaurant dream survive if no one can find them on the restaurant app?

Overall, I quite enjoyed Automatic Noodle. While the first chapter is a bit rough trying to keep all the robots and acronyms straight (there's a lot of world building thrown at you right off the bat), I ended up quite liking the main characters (I didn't have much of an opinion on the sentient truck). My biggest complaint was that the book just kind of ended. Staybehind, the ex-military robot-turned maintenance man for the restaurant, managed to infiltrate the inner circle of the anti-robot group and get evidence of their review-bombing to save the restaurant's online reputation. Then the book fastforwarded to after the reputation was saved, but the robots decided they don't even really want to bother using the app anymore because they have become successful enough using an old-school website and through neighborhood foot traffic. The end. It was very abrupt and underwhelming. 

Project Hail Mary

 A friend of mine wanted to do a sort of book club together with some books including Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. We just happened to start reading it right before the movie is due to come out, so that was a happy coincidence. :)

In Project Hail Mary, astronaut Mark Watney Ryland Grace wakes up from a coma in another solar system. He's really disoriented and doesn't really remember what was happening at first, but he slowly pieces together, with help of his slowly returning memories, that he and two other astronauts were sent aboard the Hail Mary to Tau Ceti in a desperate attempt to save the Earth. A bacteria, Astrophage, has been discovered traveling back and forth between our sun and Venus, and it seems to be feeding off of our sun's light; in just a few short years, without a solution, over half of the world's population will die as crops fail due to the cooling of the air. So the world's governments got together to send a team to Tau Ceti, a nearby star, that seemed to be unaffected by Astrophage (the other neighbouring stars all seemed to have similar dimming problems).

But Ryland wakes up alone; his fellow astronauts passed away in transit. So now he has to solve the problem on his own.

Or at least, that's what he originally thinks until he encounters an alien star-ship. It seems that an alien species from another solar system (40 Eridani) are having similar problems due to Astrophage, and are also at Tau Ceti to try to find a solution. When the aliens saw the Hail Mary arrive, they made contact in the hopes that the two species can find a solution and save both their worlds together.

I loved Project Hail Mary. I wasn't expecting an alien species to make contact with Ryland, and, being a language nerd, I loved how they built up communication together. I also loved Rocky (what Ryland calls his new alien friend), and thought the two of them made a great team. 

The book goes back and forth between Ryland's present at Tau Ceti and his past, where he was part of the team that built the Hail Mary, as flashbacks as he regains his memories. The past serves to help him remember things about the ship and how it works, which in turns helps him use his scientific knowledge (he is a microbiologist) to try to find a solution to the Astrophage. I did start getting annoyed with going back to the past at times once the book got going because I was much more interested in what was going on at Tau Ceti than with what happened while they were building the ship. Though there was some interesting intrigue going on as well, once it became clear that everything wasn't quite as clear-cut as I originally assumed regarding Ryland's presence.

I also felt like Ryland wasn't really his own character, but just a further adventure of Mark Watney from The Martian. While it's admittedly been over a decade since I read The Martian, I felt like they were just too similar. Both were science nerd with a lot of random knowledge that was helpful. They also talked and thought in what felt like a similar manner (though again, it might not be; I haven't reread The Martian recently). 

The book also feels similar to The Martian in that everything that can go wrong (but Ryland and company survive) does. I remember feeling like the book must be wrapping up soon, but looking at how many pages are left to go still and thinking "well, at least one or two things are still going to go wrong from here."  So that was a little bit disappointing.

But honestly, I flew through the book in just a few days, barely wanting to put it down. I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to the movie (though it'll be interesting to see how Ryan Gosling interprets Ryland Grace - a lot of how he talks in the book reminds me of Ryan Reynolds).