If I ever get my hands on a time machine, I will only be traveling forward in time. Humanity is the worst.

The romance was so cute, but the world-building was so lackluster and the story dragged. It needs at least two more subplots to fix the pacing.

Will fully admit I read this entire book and didn't even realize the main character is nameless until the friend who recommended this pointed it out, but I think that highlights the best part of these. Fun and noir-adjacent and just a good adventure, the details don't really get in the way--unless those details are about vinyl or any substance that will get you fucked up.

I spent all six hundred pages with my heart in my stomach. So, so good.

TW: rape

A fun and fascinating look at how language changes and the various ways we have to express ourselves.

The best part? Revisiting old memes.

The worst part? Realizing I was a full-fledged adult with two college degrees and a full-time job before emojis existed. Jesus H Christ.

I think this is a really important topic, but the book has issues.

First, it squicks me out that the main author is white and I can't find any information on the second author, and neither of them put their pictures in the back of the book so I had to go digging. (No one but a white person would include photos of Werner von Braun captioned as "Nazi Werner von Braun" then continue to reference what an important figure he is in nearly every chapter.)

Second, this book reads like an academic paper without a thesis. It's a jumble of stories of whoever they could get interviews with or access to, and none of it is cohesive. It feels like the authors wanted to tell this story, didn't know how, and threw this book together anyway.

Thirdly, it's not even really about NASA. It's mostly about the racism in the South, specifically Alabama.

I also found it troublesome how often this book puts a halo on black people who were willing to step away from their dreams in the face of segregation. I understand I'm writing this from a place of modern and white privilege, but I wish the authors had done something other than say "look at how polite these black people were and they still achieved things," because it feels like they are denouncing necessary work that has been done and is being done to fight racism.

I'm tired of stories that include SA for shock value.
I'm tired of stories where the abuse takes up pages for "character building" but the character doesn't deal with the trauma because the author added it to make their story grittier.
I'm tired of stories where I'm in constant fear for the character getting SAed.
And I'm tired of these being billed as love stories.

I'm so very, very tired.