This book felt so raw in the best ways. A woman, her grandmother, and her (sort of) sister, trying to survive the world and each other against poverty, intergenerational trauma, and their own sharp edges. The characters are hard and cruel and make horrible decisions, and despite all of that and their own intentions they love each other.

I found it dragged a bit in the middle but the ending was phenomenal. I loved the footnotes, and what they wound up representing.

We gouged our civilization from the bodies of others while pretending to decency. Yet we gasp in surprise when we receive so flawlessly what we have earned.

This is another book that it's really difficult to talk much about what it did well without major spoilers, but I really liked this. The story only takes place in a handful of locations but the universe feels vast, the linguistics study feels necessary to the plot development, and I found the main character's voice, academic enthusiasm and kind of hapless shenanigans charming.

I really appreciated that the author was willing to tackle thorny issues like the after-effects of slavery and colonialism while acknowledging that there are no easy solutions after the fact, and that well-meaning people can still cause harm. As someone in a semi-related field the ending has given me a lot to think about.

The only negative to me was that while I understand why the choice was made, the constant misgendering of the Star Eaters by the main character (and therefore, the narration) annoyed me.