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[3.5 stars] Were you silent, or silenced? I was silenced. I tried to review this when I finished it but ŷ������ temporarily disabled reviews after it won The Booker Prize. And I hate writing reviews weeks later, but here we are!

I enjoyed Orbital's limited setting and philosophizing about the beauty of our world, space, climate change, and geography. It's a book that leaves you thinking and reflecting long after you've completed it. I would HIGHLY recommend it via audio, as it feels like a planetarium show and brings back that childlike wonder about science and technology.

Orbital is a unique book in that it's not really about the characters we follow nor does it have a distinctive plot. I'd argue the protagonist is the Earth itself and how humanity has continuously taken it for granted. It's easy to ignore the natural beauty of our world, so by setting the novel from space Harvey does an excellent job dismantling our fixation with arbitrary concepts like borders and countries and focusing on universal things like wildlife, weather, and change.

My only real critique of the book is it feels a tiny bit repetitive and the ending didn't entirely make sense to me (I definitely want to revisit it, but if you have thoughts I'd love to hear them). Nonetheless, a really interesting read I'd recommend everyone at least give an attempt at reading just to appreciate what we often take for granted. The storytelling reminds me a lot of The Performance and Headshot if you're looking for comparable titles!