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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
The meteor strike and its aftermath; existential threat of extinction; some confrontation
Language
Some
Moderate language in a 1950s period register
Sexual Content
Some
Married couple with an intimate and loving relationship; some adult content
Substance Use
Barely any
Period social drinking; post-disaster stress responses
Emotional Intensity
Some
Anxiety disorder as a lived experience, sexism and racism in STEM fields historically, the relationship between ambition and fear
What this book is about
On March 3, 1952, a meteor strikes the mid-Atlantic and devastates Washington DC. Elma York — a WASP pilot and mathematician — calculates that the impact will set off a slow climate disaster that will make Earth uninhabitable within decades. The only solution is to get people off the planet. But the early space program doesn't want women. Kowal's Hugo and Nebula-winning novel follows Elma's fight to become the first female astronaut, her anxiety disorder, and the racism and sexism of a program that needs her brilliance but not her body.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
existential threat of extinction as premise
sexism and racism in the space program
anxiety disorder depicted with clinical specificity
Reader Verification
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