This isn’t a very long book, it’s several different characters growing and expanding their horizons during their chapter, but it is a very hopeful book. Things can get better and improve from the situation they’re in and that is the driving fundamental of the stories. I’m not sure if this is the book that’s sparked the somewhat recent influx of translated hopeful books, but it’s a shining example of the genre. I also would really like a wonderful librarian who gives out appropriate additional reading material along with a felted toy.

The end of the series, but not an end I think the overall series expected. You have to wonder with the timing of the publishing of True Blood, what else could have been explored through the murders occurring around Lily Bard. Thankfully, she’s recovered from her bout of uncharacteristic-ness in the previous book, and even joins a therapy group to confront her past to try and move forward in her relationship with Jack. It isn’t as much of a focal point here but it continues to be touchingly sweet and poignant, especially with the events that unfold during the novel. Lily Bard is a character that experiences the rarely talked about pieces of life and I was very pleased to see a support group feature so strongly in this book. The murder plot is a little more straightforward in this book than previous, although with a few twists that ultimately lead nowhere to distract the reader for a chapter or two. It would have been nice to have some more Lily Bard to look forward to, although I believe she makes a cameo in True Blood, but as endings go, this is at least a hopeful one

This is a very beautifully written book, heavy on the evocative description and the yearning for something that most people will never read experience. It’s blunted in places with the sheer reality of their situations: one character’s mother dies while their in space and they’re forced to deal with the limbo that follows; the mundane banality of everyday life squeezed in close quarters; and the fact that their bodies are slowly betraying them the longer they stay in space. It’s a haunting read and reminds me that several astronauts have turned to the arts upon their arrival from space which is just a beautiful thing to know.

This is one of the weaker, if not the weakest in the series. I’ll hold that extra judgement for when I’ve finished the next book and I believe this is because of the focus of the book’s attention, primarily being a single promiscuous woman in an age when that was something to be abhorred. While the book is dated, it really feels it in this book. Lily, as well, seems to be undergoing some kind of character devolution as she proclaims herself to be not a victim blamer and turns around and victim blames in the next breath. She’s also cruel at times when in previous books, she wouldn’t have been, and it left me feeling at odds with the novel’s progression. The twist reveal was left until the very last chapter where, in previous, it could’ve been guessed a little before so it wasn’t as strong here either. Even the B-plot wasn’t enough to sway my disappointment with this book as Lily was just different to her previous self in a very negative way.