Ell started reading Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #5)

Admin of bookwyrm.cincodenada.com, as you might expect. Endlessly curious engineer; something approaching, say, genderqueer. Third rhyme with dactyl feet: it goes here.
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This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and …
This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and …
Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire's Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children …
Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire's Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children …
Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West's …
An impulsive word can start a war. A timely word can stop one. A simple act of friendship can change …
Content warning more major spoilers, more predictions
"And more important, Rocky's people die." Okay yes, very noble and all, but let's be real: the survival of your singular metallic crab boyfriend is of equal importance at minimum here.
Also I want to be clear that I mean the platonic part, this is bromance of its purest and highest form, male friendship that defies and transcends masculine boundaries of relationship with deep abiding trust and mutual admration built across not only language barriers, but differences in ever possibly way down to the literal foundational way they perceive the world.
Am I reading much into this? Yes, as is my right. Platonicness notwithstanding, will I seek out Grocky slash fiction/art when this is all done? Most definitely. Will I shamelessly reuse this comment in my eventual review? You bet!
Content warning more major spoilers, more predictions
Okay yep, that didn't take long: "I can go home. I really can..." but you're not gonna, you big lug, because you're in brokenhearted love with your platonic space crab engineer boyfriend and given a second chance at being selfless and sacrificing yourself for the greater good, this time for a planet of aliens that are unimaginably different from you (but also so much the same that you're in love with one), of course you're gonna run headlong to your death.
Still 50/50 on magically having the cake and eating it too, I don't trust that Weir has it in him to actually kill the dude off. Survival half is split into a 25/25 between going back to Earth vs permanent space suit and living out the rest of his days in crabville. "Rocky, you're a genius!" with a big sobby xenonite-bubble hug in either case tho.
Content warning big late plot spoilers, profanity, predictions
Oh damn!! Unexpected 11th-hour crisis! Quite literally, in fact, if this book was twelve hours long it would be 11:16 right now.
Sitting outside the coffee shop and literally said out loud "you bastard, you're gonna go save Rocky aren't you?"
So there's my call: the magnificent big-hearted cowardly astronaut jettisons the meticulously-reconstructed beetles to earth, and then ends up on a new suicide mission to save Rocky. With 50 of my 900 ebook pages to do it???
Side bet: I'm 50/50 on if he and Rocky find some new miraculous way to still get him home.
Maybe he just signals with Checkov's Morse Code, and Rocky sees it because he's also missing his buddy...but for arc and character development, re-engaging the suicide mission seems more likely.
This is very much in the same tone/style as the Martian, which is to say it's engaging and interesting and cloyingly dudeish. It just balances out to worthwhile for me, but if you thought The Martian was annoying this will not be an improvement!
Fun worldbuilding though, good aliens, all that.