Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Life on our planet as you’ve never seen it before.”

It’s time to start my 12 in 2025 reads! 🥳 Because January is such a busy reading month for me, I opted for the shortest book first in the list, which just so happened to be Orbital, the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, recommended by the truly fabulous Tina Baker! Even though it’s the shortest of my 12 in 2025 recommendations, it probably took me even longer to read than one of my usual hefty thrillers!! I really needed to take my time with this. It’s stunning, unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

I’m not one for buying award winners (for some reason) but even before Tina recommended this one to me, I’d bought it and was very excited to read it after so many incredible reviews. So happy to be sharing my review of the book everyone has been talking about!

About the book

A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

The beginning

Many of the reviews I’ve read for this book claim that it’s beautifully written, and even though I believed it, there is nothing quite like reading it with your own eyes. It is so incredibly beautiful, I can’t even explain to you. From the first page, the descriptions of Earth are so vivid, so visual that it makes you feel so very small. It makes you feel as though you’re sat inside a spacecraft thousands and thousands of miles into space with six astronauts at your side. There isn’t much of a plot, but I didn’t really expect one. It basically felt like a love letter to the universe, to the beauty of Earth. And my god was I completely absorbed in each and every sentence. It was so poetic; many times, I went back to reread paragraphs that were simply too stunning not to read a second time. I really feel as though you need to read this as slowly as possible to, as Tina suggests, savour it.

“If we must go to an improbable, hard-to-believe-in place when we die, that glassy, distant orb with its beautiful lonely light shows could well be it.”

To me, the characters in this book were faceless. There isn’t any real focus on their physical appearance, but more on their backstories. We take a peek into their pasts, their journeys to becoming an astronaut. Their love stories. What they’ve left back home. What they’ve lost. When news of the death of a mother reaches the team, it really made me think. If the mother died on Earth, had she really died up here? If we never return to Earth, has it even happened? The book is constantly thought provoking, always making you think so deeply about life and what it means. Who we are and where we’ve come from. I loved how there are so many thoughts about the positives and negatives of being in space compared with Earth. The crew follow a strengthening typhoon, sending information and photographs back to Earth, to prepare them for what’s to come. It felt like quite the ordeal for the crew, to see such a thing prepare itself before striking.

The middle

The crew carry out numerous tests that simply fascinated me. Monitoring microbes. Growing protein crystals. Collecting data. Reporting on their physical health. I don’t know why, but I haven’t thought too much about what astronauts do while they’re up in space. But now it’s all I’m thinking about! The more I read, the more aware of everything I felt. I also understood the apprehension that these crew members felt if they thought about things a little too much, for a little too long. When they think about their proximity to Earth. I loved their stories about their Earth lives, just how much they differ to the lives they live up here. Everything they see from their little pod, how the thick piece of metal and bulletproof glass they’re living in is keeping them alive. At times, the description is so complex that I had to backtrack a little, but as I’ve said before, rereading is a treat anyway so I didn’t really mind it!

“If Nell had ever been afraid of nothingness, once she was in it she was consoled and yearned – if she yearned for anything out there – to drift into it and for her tether to reel out some thousands of miles.”

Reading about astronaut, Chie’s memories on Earth felt so moving and emotional at times. It stirred so much within me. The way I thought about life and how often I felt a sense of reawakening, about not letting the small stuff bother you was such a breath of fresh air. We’re all the same. We’re all tiny people on a tiny planet in the grand scheme of things. Reading a lot of this book put so much into perspective. I wasn’t expecting it to really teach me anything, but my mindset about so much was slowly shifting because of it. I loved hearing about the difference in time zones on Earth, how day turns to night and back again. What a sight it must be from space! The typhoon’s destructive path was changing and intensifying. Thoughts of those impacted flew between the crew. So terrifying, but its creation so fascinating. Nature, ladies and gentleman! So beautiful and so deadly in equal measure.

The end

Certain experiences in the spacecraft remind them, mostly lovingly, of experiences back on Earth. Home. I loved all the many stories they share with each other, but also their own personal thoughts. How their priorities shift. How being in space for such long periods of time can change a person. How it can affect their relationships with their loved ones. Countries pass by in waves of colour, descriptions constantly so vivid and wonderful. We hear about the creation of Earth and life through the author’s words and I’ve never felt more in awe of something I’ve read. Reading about this sort of stuff will forever blow my mind. I felt like I’d be left wanting more because this book is so short, but it couldn’t be more perfect for what it sets out to do. It doesn’t need to be longer. And to be honest, reading this book took me way longer than when I read some much bigger books!

“We matter greatly and not at all. To reach some pinnacle of human achievement only to discover that your achievements are next to nothing and that to understand this is the greatest achievement of any life, which itself is nothing, and also much more than everything.”

The ending of the book felt so deep. The connection between Earth and space, and everything in between. How there is so much hope for a future beyond Earth. Will we occupy Mars one day? Will we look back toward Earth and talk about what once was? Our home planet. All the stories. By the end, I was researching so much, and I’ll probably still being doing so for a good week! Photos of Earth from space. Videos of the 1969 moon landing. It’s all starting to fascinate me more than it ever has. Finishing this book was such a strange feeling. A good one – did anyone else feel it too? I can’t even explain what I mean, but I just sat in silence for at least 30 minutes just thinking about everything! If you have even the slightest interest in space, read this book. If you’re interested because it’s won The Booker Prize, read it. It definitely deserves the hype! I’m not sure I’ll read anything like it again.

Overall thoughts

Orbital is really unlike anything you’ll ever read. It takes you on an unforgettable journey, painting a breathtaking picture of our world, of space and everything in between. We see how a voyage around Earth affects six astronauts with varying stories to tell. It’s a beautiful balance of the every day happenings of a space venture, combined with such profound questions and discussions about our existence, what everything means, who we are, where we’ve come from. And I guarantee you’ll be left thinking about what comes next. What else is out there. What it means to be here, alive and present. It’s fascinating, deeply thought-provoking, awe-inspiring. It will fill you with a new found sense of gratitude and wonder. Brilliant!

You can grab your own copy of Orbital right now over on Amazon or wherever you buy your books!

I’m so thankful to the lovely Tina Baker for recommending Orbital as one of my 12 in 2025 reads! I’ve reviewed all of Tina’s books over the years and absolutely recommend checking out her thrillers; Call Me Mummy, Nasty Little Cuts, Make Me Clean and What We Did In The Storm. They’ve all been five star reads for me! 💙

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