CATCHING UP: THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET BY BECKY CHAMBERS *SPOILER-FREE* DISCUSSION

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! Today I’m coming at you with a new series here on my blog, called “Catching Up”. This is going to be a year-long series all about catching up on the books on my shelves (both physical & Goodreads) that I feel like I’ve missed out on, but am making a point of reading now! These are all books I feel are genre staples that I’ve missed out on, as well as books I really feel like I should have read by now but need some motivation to actually pick up!

[YOU CAN FIND MY REVIEW OF THE WAYFARERS TRILOGY HERE]

This month for my new series I decided to read The Small Way To A Long, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I’ve been meaning to read this for years because I had heard so much about the fantastic diverse cast and I had heard that it was also a pretty slow read that is really different & would make me cry.

SO … WHAT DID I THINK?

Honestly, I put this off for years and years because I was so intimidated by it. I decided late in December that I wanted to start the year off by reading a trilogy so I put this trilogy on hold at the library, grabbed the audiobooks and decided that I would read this in January, or it just wouldn’t happen!

I managed to go into this book spoiler-free so I really loved that about it, I had literally no idea what to think about it. I think it’s best to go into the story that way, too. The story is a bit slower and based a lot around the main cast characters. This book is very much a mix of all the good things from Zenith & The Raven Cycle. It has a great cast of characters, all completely different to each other and it also has the great strong female relationships thing that I think Zenith was missing.

Something else I really really enjoyed about this book was how slow the book was, and how character-based and unreliant on a plot the book is. The main group is 9 characters which seems like a lot, and honestly, it is because I had to write a character guide, but once I wrote my guide everything was making so much more sense! Once you really get going with the book it’s so much fun to read!

WHAT I LOVED

• Diverse characters (sexuality, race, gender)
• A really interesting read with unique characters
• Good writing
• Great friendships, minimal romance
• Subtle commentary that I loved!
• No gross, cocky characters (thank god!)
• No info dumping!
  Not plot heavy

THE NEGATIVES

• Some really long chapters that can grate on you depending on what time you’re reading at
• Easy to confuse characters without a character guide

The only thing I really wasn’t a fan of was how long some of the chapters are. Some of them are 30 pages which is A LOT. But, really that’s all! I really enjoyed this book, and enough to read the second and third books immediately after!

Overall, I’m so mad at myself for waiting years to read this book just because I loved it so much and I’m sure it would have been the perfect found-family story for me to read after I finished reading The Raven Cycle!

I’m really happy that I finally pushed myself to read this and that I loved it as much as I did. I can definitely see myself re-reading this in the future because I loved the friendships so much, though I can’t say the same for the other books in the trilogy! I’m excited to see what else the author puts out next because I just loved the characters so much!

WHAT SHOULD I READ NEXT?

HAVE YOU READ THE WAYFARERS TRILOGY?

HAVE HAVE