I love Carmilla and this was exactly the kind of retelling that I was craving!!! Undeniably sapphic, filled with righteous female rage and crises of morality, this was delicious! It was a bit slow moving and dragged in certain bits, but the story was well worth it! Highly recommend to any Carmilla fans!

rated 3.75 on storygraph

project hail mary is the kind of book that i would recommend to beginners within sci-fi, who aren't looking for anything too serious or heavy we'll pretend the premise of this book isn't literally an apocalypse LOL

weir's tone throughout this book is funny without being too over-the-top or unserious, and i think that the way the humor is worked into the narrative was done really well. the characters were also beautifully crafted, imo, particularly grace and stratt. the way that weir creates such a lovable, adorable little ball out of rocky and rocky-grace interactions also makes me (biased-ly) view grace in a warmer light.

the science in this book is very non-science reader friendly, as i found it quite easy to follow along as a chronic physics-class-napper-and-flunker. while i enjoyed seeing additional scientific context and discussion from science-knowers here on pb, i wasn't confused or in the dark just going off of what i read in the book (in fact, i only got some of the forum context after i was almost through with the book because this forum was so big it scared me 😭😭).

that said, i don't think that this book was phenomenal or mindblowing. i honestly don't even think that the quality of the writing was particularly good. at times it felt juvenile and unpolished(? there may be a better word for that, but my brain isn't braining rn), and that did make this book quite difficult for me to pick up and continue with, even when the plot was in full swing at a quick pace. the dialogue had a tendency to feel quite artificial at times, and sometimes felt like weir was trying a bit too hard to convey personality through it.

if you can push through mid writing and (despite a very interesting premise) a semi-mid plot, i would definitely encourage people to read this to experience the bromance and comforting vibes that this book brings ❤️