Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier

​Seriously? This was only 288 pages? It read so much longer. I’m not sure why.
I mean, it’s an exceptionally well-written book, but it’s quite…languidly paced. Science fiction at its most meditative. Or a love story at its most otherworldly.
I did enjoy it, mostly. Especially, in retrospect.
For one thing, it’s difficult to not appreciate a beauty of the author’s language, the haunting lyrical quality of it, the way he writes love, the way he writes longing…that’s a song in and of itself. A song of distance. This novel is very much about distance.
A distance between two planets. A distance between two people. The efforts to span it.
The planets are Earth and Mars. In book’s alternate reality, the two are in communication, albeit halting and sporadic and with math as the language of choice.
The people are Crystal Singer who drives the communication brigade and the man who loves her. She’s a challenging, mercurial, complicated woman driven by a mind that at times disagrees with her soul; he’s a much more straightforward sort of person, the most complex thing about him is his love for Crystal, which drives him for years and years. Drives him to find her when she disappears. Leaving a doozy of a surprise behind.
This is a love story, a science story, a road trip story. In its own way, set to its own melody, it is lovely. Compelling. Emotionally engaging. Like a good song. You just got to give it time to weave its magic around you. I mean, it had me at Mars. And slowly won over with the rest over time. 
Not sure how it’ll work for other readers. Thanks Netgalley.