This book was so much fun!! It was informative and adorable and moving (this is the second time a book about arthropods has made me cry about the Columbia disaster) in all the right ways! O'Hanlon's enthusiasm for his chosen subject is so clear and I think he managed to share the info covered in this book in a really accessible way.

O'Hanlon's goal, as stated at the front of the book, is to give readers more positive spider stories to share, and he delivers. The book is filled with fun facts about spiders, interesting examples of spider research, a section on spider mythbusting, and even some spider physics (spiders and static electricity? So cool!!) The book manages to flow from topic to topic in a super engaging way, rather than feeling rushed or unorganized. The sense of humor in this book generally worked for me, and thankfully managed to be just shy of too much. The wide-eyed wonder and breathless excitement that O'Hanlon writes nearly every page with might get a bit tiresome for some readers, but honestly I was enjoying it too much to care.

If you're wanting a book that covers spider biology basics, I would have to say that isn't this book, but as a casual way to learn what there is to appreciate about spiders, it's a super good time.

Also, jumping spiders!? In the Himalayas!? More likely than you think 🕷️

As You Wake, Break the Shell was an absolutely breathtaking read for me. I've been a fan of Becky Chambers and was delighted that this book absolutely exceeded the high expectations I had for it! Other than knowing it's a planned duology, I think fans of Chambers will have the best time going in knowing as little as possible. If you've previously enjoyed the slice-of-life, musing-on-existence vibes interspersed with emotionally impactful revelations of her other works, and you enjoy a heavy focus on romance, I think you'll enjoy this one. For some readers, I think the back-and-forth switching of POVs and timelines won't work, but I absolutely loved it.

The characters are just amazing. Cora and Signy are our primary protagonists and they both feel so formed. I loved watching them fall in love and I especially adored their cozy domesticity in the future sections. It was really pleasant to read about a proper, adult relationship that felt at once very ordinary but also gave me butterflies. It just felt like such an authentic romance. The side characters also feel well-formed and were very endearing. Their connections to our protags felt really genuine which was so important since those relationships make up such a crucial part of the story.

Colibri is probably the standout character for me. The prose used to capture her and Cora's exchanges was stunning and... Gosh, it's so hard to explain the emotions it evoked in me, but there was joy at how loving she was, a building frustration with her circumstances, and this incredible sense of bittersweetness in her relationship with Cora. The tension between their deep and abiding love alongside the way they unintentionally hurt each other was so moving. So many of their sections moved me to tears.

I loved the dual timelines, I loved the dual POVs, I loved the constant swapping back and forth in the earlier sections of the book. It felt like past and future were in conversation with each other across the pages. Even though this wasn't a linear story, each chapter had a thread that readily connected it to the next and propelled the story along. A lot of it is just enjoying the developing or developed relationship between Signy and Cora, and just when I would start to wonder, "is there a greater plot here?", some little tidbit would be dropped that kept me reading because I had to know how it all connected!

While this book is slower and methodical in it's pacing for most of the read and the romance is so lived in and wonderful, I would not call this a cozy book and that's to its benefit. There's a lot of grief depicted, not to mention the bleak circumstances most of our characters exist in. The book doesn't ignore these elements in order to maintain a sense of coziness. It makes a point to depict all of it, all the elation, all the pain, all the quiet moments of love and loss. In the moments of the book where you feel delight at the making of dumplings or the sight of a bumblebee, you know that the rorquals are being mistreated and people are going without necessary medications. In the same vein, the moments where you feel the claustrophobia of existing on a toxic planet with no hope past the small world around you, you recall the simple joy of seeing a carrot flower and providing something your community needs.

It's truly a book that's about the journey. We know where our characters start, we know where they end, and getting those little glimpses between was perfect. It mixed the relief and elation of knowing where Signy and Cora would end up so beautifully with the tragedy and tension of knowing and waiting for what must come next for them to reach that point. I can't wait to put this book on my shelf and I am already so excited for other people to experience it! No one is doing it like Becky Chambers is and no matter how long it takes for book two to be completed and released, I will be eagerly awaiting it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

To begin, I would like to acknowledge that I read this for a book club with the near certainty that I wouldn't enjoy it. By chapter five, I knew it wasn't for me, but I kept going. There were points in this book where I wondered if this was actually a masterful satire of dark romantasy as a genre, but if it was, it was so poorly written that it wouldn't have worked for me in that capacity either. To be clear, this is a review for haters.

I truly don't know why this had anything to do with Greek mythology. Now, I read the original Percy Jackson series, but Greek gods were never really a thing I was into as a kid. Good news: you don't have to be into it to understand this book, because it seems like the author took most of the mythos and threw it in the garbage! Why did it have to be this way? I guess the author just needed some names for her characters and this was easier than thinking any up?

I also very much dislike the way the author writes and formats her prose. I needed there to be an editor, I needed there to be someone who said "hey, maybe we should slow down with the line breaks, they're not really adding emphasis anymore" or "I'm taking parentheticals and italics away from you for a little bit" to the author. The narrative is constantly interrupting itself so that we can read Alexis' sarcastic quips or get her self-deprecating thoughts.

Speaking of Alexis, she's a character that was difficult to sit with. She's written to be so pathetic that it almost becomes comical - she lives in a cardboard box. Come on. In some ways, I can see where she would be a compelling protagonist - disabled, easily read as neurodivergent, using humor to get through her trauma. But it never comes together into a satisfying character - her disability rarely seems to impact her, she's never able to talk back in moments where it would make pivotal sense to do so (only when there are jokes to be made), and even when there were times that I found her internal dialogue nearing funny, the joke would then proceed to be played to death until it was no longer funny. She's also just inconsistent - she would come across as rather conservative when it came to judging others (calling Spartans slutty, for instance), but then her own thoughts never really aligned with that? She mentions her pastor pretty frequently at the beginning and her religion or lack thereof should have felt integrated into the character, but it was only ever used to, of course, crack a joke.

None of the MMCs make any real sense - for the most part, they actively dislike Alexis, physically harm her, denigrate her constantly, and yet... They're all obsessed with her? We never get to see how that obsession come to be, especially with Achilles and Patro, who just do a complete 180 for reasons that are still unknown to me - maybe book 2 would make it make sense, but I'm not reading that. They're all obsessed with her, and yet not a single one of these men can ask her any questions?? They're mean to the point of it being nonsensical. They keep taunting her for being an "abandoned mutt", and yet get mad at her over things that they assumed she must have known about. How can she be an abandoned mutt and also knowledgeable enough to play the system!? How can they be relying on her to get them a promotion, but also they don't help her at all? Why do they act like she purposefully hid her homelessness and scars as a personal slight to them? They care enough to be murderous over what happened to her, but they never cared enough to ask in the first place?? Why?? (The answer is misogyny: they only care about Alexis as an extensions of themselves.) These men don't even come across as darkly charming or alluring in any way. There is just no magnetism, no chemistry there. If you have to write a side character who keeps insisting to the protagonist, "that was so hot, that guy is so into you", you should probably rework your romances so that the reader can get that impression without having to be told.

Anyway, past the beginning of the book, the plot becomes loosely strung together. "Time" and "the world" warp constantly, moving us from one set piece of the plot to the next. Surely there were other ways for the author to describe the passage of time and Alexis' deteriorating mental state. It just feels lazy and also like an excuse to have Alexis in a vulnerable state for a good portion of the book. Also, any world-building that the reader needs is usually just info-dumped in large chunks of text. It's a good thing Alexis had to go to class or how else would we have learned anything about the world?

Finally, I would just like to say how much I absolutely hate the way the word "mutt" is used in the book. I'm probably projecting somewhat here, but it's so fucking hateful. Like, I'd get it if "mutts" was used derogatorily, but it seems to be the actual official term for demigods/half-bloods. Like, it's how they're labeled in the family tree in the front of the book. But it's also used derogatorily and it feels very strange to have the word act in both capacities.

OH AND!!! The beginning of the book and audiobook both have a short list of content warnings. The book then directs you to the author's website for a "full list". Just to be safe, I went to check them and you know what? I couldn't find them anywhere. I have checked the website multiple times to see if I'm just missing something, but nope! There is no full list! I don't know if it was there and just got lost with a website redesign or if it just never existed. Either way, it's really appalling given that I would argue the ballroom scene develops into nonconsensual touching and that is not on the short list of CWs given at the front of the book. I get that authors aren't required to provide CWs and that there are other resources available to find that information. My frustration is specifically that the book points the reader to something that doesn't exist while asking you to "please take care of yourself". It's embarrassing.

Would not recommend this book. It actively put me in a bad mood.