 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book where music plays an integral part in the story.
Space Oddity, by Catherynne M.Valente This is a wonderfully absurd space opera comedy. In the first book, Space Opera, we were introduced to the Metagalactic Grand Prix, a sort of interplanetary Eurovision, where Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes saved Earth from annihilation. Now they've encountered the Vedriti, and Decibel Jones is supposed to mentor them in their first competition. Like all newly discovered species, the Vedriti are warned that if they come in last at their first Grand Prix, they will be deemed non-sentient and annihilated. The problem: the Vedriti can't be bothered. Threatened with destruction, they simply don't care. The story has time-traveling red pandas, bloodthirsty Care Bear unicorns, sentient gases named Ursula, and bureaucrats (they're the same in any universe). One review described Valente's writing style as "exhausting," and I see what they mean. Every sentence is a journey with an unexpected twist. Here's one picked literally at random: A single, merciless, eardrum-smearing note, in depth and power like unto a vuvuzela jammed up a blue whale's bum, bonged out through every corridor, berth, access duct, office, common area, performance venue, and cat tree on the consolation-class starship. The whole book is like that. Mind-bending, full of inexplicable digressions, and utterly hilarious.
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