To Be Taught If Fortunate will rekindle your love for reading!
If you long to explore diverse worlds and love character-driven stories, then To Be Taught If Fortunate is for you!
Chambers's To Be Taught If Fortunate is a delightfully compelling story of four astronauts and their noble journey to explore exoplanets—not for profit, but for the purpose of gaining knowledge and cataloging the life they find there. It explores our world in the not so distant future, and takes real problems—such as climate change—and projects how spaceflight might be molded by them.
Each of the four main characters feels viscerally real and human, struggling with their own challenges and finding their own joys while working together in space. They reflect the diversity of a world that can come together to undertake the enormous task of spaceflight, while not making that diversity the center of the narrative. It's remarkable how seamlessly Chambers weaves each character's identity into the story. Yes, queer people from every region on Earth should dream of a life among the stars without being erased!
A mystery element is added halfway through the book and I raced to finish afterward! I can't recommend this book enough, especially if you have had difficulty reading recently and are looking to re-establish a habit. This book will make you excited to read again!
Writing: 9/10. The novella is told by our hero Ariadne who sent a report back to Earth regarding everything that the team discovered during their time in space. Chambers’s use of first-person perfectly sets this scene and helps immerse the reader into the journal-like style of the story.
Characters: 10/10. Rarely have I read a book with such an incisive look at a cast of characters. Chambers manages to show each individual person’s identity, goals, sorrows, hopes, insecurities, and vibrancy in an extraordinarily well rounded and integrated way. Reading these characters teaches me to be a more compassionate human and I plan to study the way Chambers fleshes out her characters as a way to improve my own writing.
Plot: 9/10. The story itself is perhaps a commentary that plot-heavy stories—racing from one goal to the next in order to complete the mission—miss the point. That our stories and our lives have become too cluttered and busy and we ought to breathe and appreciate the beauty of the world around us. Not because it is useful, but because it is beautiful, a notion that I find particularly compelling. For some, however, this plot may feel a bit dull and slow, particularly when Ariadne describes technical details of the mission such as bio-decontamination procedures.
Setting: 10/10. The beautiful descriptions in this novella jolt the setting to life. Each of the four worlds that the crew visits becomes a distinct and particular character on their own. I often found myself no longer reading the words on the page, instead daydreaming about the incredible worlds that Chambers creates.
Overall: 9.5/10. If you haven’t read as much as you wanted to this year due to the pandemic, or any other reason, To Be Taught If Fortunate is the perfect book to reignite your passion and kickstart a new habit! 5 Stars.
You can learn more about Becky Chambers and check out her other books at her website here.