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Orbital by Samantha Harvey

"Essentially, it's the story of six Astronauts, working and living on the International Space Station that orbits the Earth. Though the author tried to give the characters background, the book was too short to make any one character stick out and the lack of a cohesive plot made it so the book just kept going, around and around, much like the Space Station in its continuous orbit of the Earth."

⭐⭐

Pros: There were moments of true beauty at the beginning, seeing Earth from the vantage point of Space.  

Cons: The author tried to give the characters background but they all kind of blurred together, none of them really stuck out/The narrative, since there was no real plot, just ended up going around and around in circles, meandering and pointless.   

Full Review:

This book follows six astronauts who are on the space station that’s orbiting earth. To be perfectly honest, none of the character stuck out to me enough to remember their names or their places of origin. 

There were a few moments where the author tried to give the characters back story, such as when Chie learned that her mother has passed and she won't be there for the services. Or when a super typhoon forms over the Pacific and one of the astronauts remembers befriending a fisherman on a trip he took with his wife. He knows the typhoon is forming just over that small chain of Pacific islands and he hopes his friend will be okay. 

Overall though, try as the author might, this book just kind of meandered and spun its way around and around, much like the space stations continuous orbit of Earth. There was no real cohesive plot, so nothing really happened. This book was only a little over 200 pages and honestly, it took me a long time to read because, nothing really caught my interest. 

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