5 stars and I cannot mean that more.

This book has everything I want in science fiction. It is hard sci-fi in the best way possible: the science is completely real, interesting, and never made me suspend my disbelief, but the characters and story get just as much attention and are even more compelling. There is growth, humor, strong female characters, reflection, even a little romance…it’s pretty rare for a book to hit all the marks.

My favorite part is all the random quirks thrown in that make the world feel extra realistic. For example, it’s considered rude to wear your helmet in someone’s house because it implies you don’t trust the integrity of their roof. A lot of their metaphors also relate to quail (including a quail they named Canary lol) because that’s their only livestock. Every time, I giggled and was like “duh, of course that’s how they would think!”

I also loved that the reader gets to appreciate the dramatic irony of knowing more than the characters (e.g. “One miner commented it was likely the first time straw had ever been used to make a roof in all of human history.”) yet still be in suspense alongside them.

There are several detailed chemistry & geology explanations—which I personally, as a massive nerd, couldn’t adore more—but if you hate chemistry with a burning passion for some reason, this book may not be for you. However, if you ever got even a little excited during science class, then I can’t recommend this enough!