Orbital

Finished January 11

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

This exquisitely written book is short, just over 200 pages, yet one I took my time reading as the imagery she writes and the thoughts her writing provokes made me want to stop and think often, and reread certain passages. The novel was a Christmas gift chosen because it won the Booker Prize for 2024. 

It is set mostly in the International Space Station over 24 earth hours. There are four astronauts and two cosmonauts at the station and the story is told in third person, but giving us access to each of their thoughts at times. Sixteen orbits of the earth by the Space Station occur over the course of 24 hours, and the book is structured around these. 

We see their professional interactions and get a sense of the work that they engage in, both scientific and housekeeping. We also see their personal thoughts and concerns, sometimes in real time and sometimes through memories of interactions with loved ones. 

One of the things they observe on this particular day is a large typhoon moving over the Pacific Ocean as it heads towards people ill-prepared for the massive storm. Another is the launch of a rocket carrying four astronauts to the moon. 

I found it fascinating as the novel talks about the land moving beneath them, the countries and land masses sliding by, with the lights at night showing the presence of human life more than the land viewed by day. It gave me a new sense of our planet and its place in space. I was also moved by the human connections between these people thrown together through circumstance, and the disparate connections they had to people back on earth. 

This novel has taken its spot as one of my favourite books of all time. 

Dark and Shallow Lies

Finished September 27

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

This young adult novel is set in a small town in Louisiana, La Chachette. It is known as the Psychic Capital of the world, and is accessible only by boat. The main character, Grey, who is seventeen, has spent her summers there for years. After her mother's death when she was eight, she has lived with her father during the rest of the year, and come to stay with her grandmother Honey in the summer.  When she returns this summer, she knows that her best friend Elora, who was born on the same day, in the same room as her, disappeared six months earlier. She is worried about the rest of her friends there and how they are reacting to the situation. She also finds it strange that none of the local psychics have been able to discover what happened to Elora. 

As the summer goes on, she feels that everyone there has secrets and some of them are more worrying than others. She also makes a new friend, a teen that also met Elora, and is aware of the close relationship that Elora and Grey had. 

As Grey grew up she knew that she and Elora were part of a group of children born that summer, known as the Summer Children. There were ten of them, born to eight different families. With the new boy, that makes eleven, a number Grey feels is unlucky. As she discovers the truth about the death of two of the group when they were very young and what the stories told then signify, she finds a need to get to the truth, for all of them. 

This is a very engaging book, about friendship and love, about finding one's one place in the world. It is a coming-of-age tale in a very unusual place. I really enjoyed the read.