This book just feels like it could have been an email. It is not plot driven or character driven, instead focusing on the daily tasks and spiralling existential thoughts experienced by six astronauts orbiting Earth in a space station. The book covers one day of life for the astronauts aboard, completing 16 total orbits of the Earth in one 24hr period. We as the reader learn very little about these six characters, to the point of barely being able to remember each individual astronaut’s name.

The writing itself is pretty hard to follow as well. I do understand it being a stylistic choice of prose by the author, but in all honesty it simply read as repetitive ramblings in sentences that were too long, too detailed, and trying too hard to be philosophical.

Reading this book made me feel like I was panning for gold - it felt like I had to sift through every sentence in the book trying to be profound in order to find the ones with any actual emotional impact.

Final thought is that if/when I reread in the future I will be sure to have a globe nearby since a solid amount of this book is describing the path of the space station’s orbit relative to geographical locations on the earth itself, many of which I do not know their exact location or have never even heard of before. Overall this book was worth a try but is unfortunately not for everyone, myself included.

The epic conclusion to the Throne of Glass series, Kingdom of Ash truly makes you feel like you are caught up in the never ending nightmare of Aelin’s reality and the fight for Erelia right alongside the characters themselves. SJM does a great job of making you feel that slim kernel of hope for justice and peace that her characters experience throughout this entire story. Everything about this book is enjoyable, right down to the heavy weight of it in my hands. Truly a hero’s journey and the best book of the series.