Author: Samantha Harvey
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Published: January 1, 2023
Publisher: Grove Press
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: March 15, 2025
My rating: 
Thoughts
Pay no attention to the negative comments on Goodreads. I have to wonder if those reviewers read the same book I did (or read it at all). There’s talk about how it’s mostly about Russians and Russian culture. But in my version (in the US) it is not the “romanticization of Russian culture.” Far from it. The most distressing part of the book was a typhoon headed toward a populated island…
Now, I will say that the book tends to the dry side and is really just a collection of thoughts and ruminations as these astronauts make 16 complete orbits around Earth. As I was reading along with the audiobook narration (there’s no way I could have finished this book without someone reading it to me), I could imagine myself in orbit of Earth, seeing what these astronauts saw.
It does kind of make me wonder what kind of banal things astronauts think about when they’re not wondering at the majesty of our planet.
Overall, I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars. While the cover calls this a novel, it is more essay than novel, with little to no character development and really no plot to speak of. But I’ll give it to Harvey that it is beautifully written and in some ways made me feel like I was orbiting Earth.
