A review by westcoastalice
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

5.0

'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' was a super fun read, but it didn't settle into the crevasses of my mind and lurk for weeks and months after I'd finished the last page. This book did. The 2nd book in the Wayfarer series is about two people (Lovelace and Pepper, both minor characters in the 1st book), one who cannot fulfil the purpose others have intended for her, and another who ran from hers. This novel about what happens afterwards: the profound delight in discovering new and surprising things about yourself, free of expectation and constraint, and the equally profound terror that others will discover your "true" self, the one you were supposed to be, and punish your wrong existence. (What would I know about that, hmm?) It's about the endless freedom, and the ever-present threat, of being someone who has defied cruel power or unbending law to become a person of your choosing. When you're a person without a purpose, how do you find your own? Can you? Must you? And it's also about solidarity. Pepper's story is told in the past tense, Lovelace's in the present, with Pepper acting as her guide, someone who has undergone this process before. As Toni Morrison said: "Your real job is that if you're free, you have to free somebody else." Having already become free, Pepper feels a responsibility to help Lovelace do the same, even if she doesn't know what that freedom will ultimately look like for her. It's her job. If we're free, it's ours, too.