I genuinely don't even know if I have the ability to talk about how much I took away from this novella. I can't say I enjoyed it, because it's not fun, but it affected me greatly as I read and was as mired in the main character Sean's thoughts and feelings as Sean is in the wolf she's neurally linked to.

While this novella has a sci-fi framework - Sean is a scientist who gets a neural link installed in her brain to link up with a wolf in the wild - it really is a character study. It focuses sharply on Sean's failing marriage, but it's not as simple as "main character is a workaholic". Sean is indeed a workaholic, but there's a toxicity to it that goes deeper than that label, and of course the rapidly declining state of her marriage forces her to find more attachment and meaning in her link with the wolf. 

It's all so...sad. And I'm not even sure how to feel about the ending, except that it seemed like the right ending for this character.

I don't know that this sort of character study will be for everyone, but I really did connect to Sean and her story as I read it, and that means everything. 

Kate Elliott has a very inventive, sort of brilliant mind, and I admire it a LOT. This didn't quite hit the mark for me in all ways, but I loved the idea of the story and the world that she came up with here. 

This is an interesting take on time travel with some interesting women at the core of the story, but it ultimately left me a little cold.

This is a sci-fi mystery in the vein of Sherlock Holmes following Mossa, an Investigator (similar to a detective) and her old college roommate/lover, Pleiti. Mossa fulfills the cold and intelligent Holmes role, while Pleiti fills the story-from-her-POV sidekick role of Watson. We meet the two as Mossa rolls back into Pleiti's life to ask for her help in the case of a disappearance, and we learn their history as they investigate and figure out if and how they can fit back into each others' lives. 

All of this takes place on Jupiter. Rather, orbiting Jupiter. Which is just so neat. Older's writing seats us firmly in the comfort and coziness of a Holmesian mystery, but wraps it up in an interesting sci-fi premise. The mystery itself is alright; I found the writing of it very decent and I enjoyed following the threads as they put them together, but what drove this for me was Mossa and Pleiti's characterization and the world building. I don't visualize things very well (if at all) as I read, so my brain was working overtime to picture this colonized orbit of Jupiter because I wanted to learn about it so much. It was so neat! 

So, so happy I grabbed this. It felt cozy in the way that slipping into well-known and well-loved Holmes stories does, but also more stimulating with the world building. 

DNF @ page 96. It simply isn't holding my attention at the moment. Might come back to this in the future. 

I'm spoiler tagging this review because while it is quite full of epic rage and I do my best NOT to include outright spoilers, I might let some things slip that could possibly spoil someone who had any interest in this book. Not that I'm recommending this. I hated it. There's a lot of capslock and cursing.

I literally do not even know what to say. I rage finished this book after the 50% mark. I skimmed massive chunks of it because a good 600 pages of this 800 page book was just info dumping and over explaining every single "hard" concept the author brings up. Everything was explained. EVERYTHING. Physics. DNA. Biology. Chemistry. Attempts at alien contact. Sometimes characters got backstory that was either incredibly boring, or incredibly racist - holy SHIT THIS WAS SO UNCOMFORTABLY WEIRD ABOUT INDIGENOUS CANADIANS AS THE AUTHOR TRIED TO SHOEHORN IN SOME LACKLUSTER BIRACIAL I-DON'T-FIT-IN-EITHER-WORLD PLOT EXCEPT THE INDIGENOUS CANADIAN MAIN CHARACTER WHO HAD SELF-HATRED FINDS HIMSELF AND BONDS WITH HIS CULTURE AGAIN WHEN HE GOES BACK HOME TO THE ARCTIC FOR A USELESS SIDE STORY ARC THAT WENT ON WAY TOO LONG JUST LIKE THIS FUCKING SENTENCE IS AAAAHHHHH

I hated every character! Every scientist was exactly the same! The romances never made sense! Why did there have to be some big CIA secret plot to ruin everything in the end? Every American was an asshole! I mean, we can be assholes, but goddamn! Not one single character in this felt like a real person, they were all disaster movie caricatures being puppeted by aliens who don't know exactly how to get human behavior right! Real humans who know that the oceans are trying to kill them wouldn't fucking GO DOWN INTO DEEP SEA DIVES AT 70% INTO THE BOOK. WHY??? WHY!!!! WHY WOULD ANYONE IN THIS FUCKING BOOK STILL GO INTO THE OCEAN???!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE STUPID EXPLANATION FOR WHAT WAS GOING ON.

I am so mad.

This should have just stayed in its lane as the Roland Emmerich disaster movie it is, rather than the author attempting to make grand statements about climate change and humanity and life on earth and, for some reason, pages and pages of religion in the end. This sucked. THIS SUCKED!!!

IT'S 12:30AM AND I'M SO MAD BUT I REFUSED TO LET THIS STUPID SUCKY BOOK BEAT ME! I FINISHED IT! I WON! EXCEPT I'VE COMPLETELY LOST!!

DNF @ page 58 (two issues). I can see the intent here and while I think it could be fun, it’s about as subtle as a brick to the face and thus not fun at all for me.  The art and color work is absolutely vibrant and lovely, though.