A Spider Sat Beside Her (Melt Trilogy, #1)

by K E Lanning

[kalventure]

I received a free copy of the book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 stars

Set in the year 2098, the main character Lowry Walker takes a position on the International Space Station to collect data on Antarctica after having been exposed due to global warming causing the Melt. The allegory for the story in a plausible "what it" imagining is clear; however, I do think that the book suffers from trying to tackle too much and not having a clear vision.

I was hooked on the book with the first pages: the writing is strong and the way the story initially unfolds piqued my interest. Unfortunately for me the strong start was short lived, and once I got to Lowry's time on the space station I was bored with the main character's adaptation to life on the ISS. Much of the plot and character interactions seems to revolve around relationships with men, or the lack thereof, and it falls a bit flat. There are also random flashbacks to the past which are probably there for character development but served no real purpose but to disengage me from the story. After the first 15% or so of the book when the main plot point occurs it did become interesting again, but the switching between character viewpoints and at times abruptly switching to the past was jarring and difficult to follow and didn't do much justice to the story.

This book had so much promise, but its argument/thesis is lost in the minutiae. I was sucked in early on but lost interest quickly. Some of the initial flashbacks to the Melt were very heavy handed and reads strongly of anti-global warming. The book suffers from not knowing its main objective or plot point as it is at times all over the place.

As a personal pet peeve, it is Colombia... not Columbia. And the book vacillates between the two spellings interchangeably.

ALSO can we talk about how SHADY Edward was from the freaking start?! Lowry was essentially running away from her divorce and engages in a relationship that from the start had a number of alarm bells. He is a lawyer for the case, flirts with her and is like "oh I am junior it doesn't matter." My notes there - shady... don't wanna talk about the case... I am barely a lawyer... I like you... be a witness. Sounds about right. And he starts calling her baby like 2 days later? This whole thing of "love" happened over like 3 weeks and it was gross.