Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin
Published 2024 · 88,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, LGBTQ+ Fiction, Satire & Humor
How hard is Interesting Facts About Space to read?
Interesting Facts About Space scores 34 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
- The book is a contemporary comic novel, and the facts about black holes and space suggest plain, conversational language with occasional science terms. It sits near Beach Read in accessibility, a little above because of the astronomy talk.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Publisher and reviewer descriptions point to a fast-paced, quirky voice. Expect direct contemporary sentences like Beach Read's, with no demanding syntax.
- Abstraction: 38 out of 100
- The story follows Enid's dating life, her family and her paranoia, which keeps it concrete. Space facts and her mental state add some reflection, but less than The Remains of the Day.
- Information density: 33 out of 100
- The novel mixes plot twists, podcasts and space trivia at a brisk pace. It stays comfortable and plot-driven, closer to The Housemaid than to anything encyclopedic.
- Narrative indirection: 42 out of 100
- Enid's growing belief that she is being followed means readers must judge whether she can be trusted. The tone is otherwise direct and confessional, so the inference is lighter than in The Great Gatsby.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- Space, black holes and spaghettification likely work as recurring motifs for Enid's fears. Descriptions suggest a mostly literal comic novel, a little above Beach Read.
- Ironic distance: 42 out of 100
- Reviewers describe macabre humor, dark quirk and a comic-surreal tone. The humor comes from Enid's neuroses rather than from heavy irony, so the novel sits above It Ends with Us but well below Lolita.
- Resolution withholding: 28 out of 100
- Reviewers say readers will be consoled by where the story goes, and the publisher calls it hopeful. That points to emotional closure closer to Beach Read than to open ambiguity.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- The plot appears to follow Enid's life in a mostly linear way, shifting from rom-com to a possible spy thriller. Its structure sits near Beach Read, with a little extra from the genre shift.
How Interesting Facts About Space is regarded
Interesting Facts About Space holds a literary regard score of 20 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.
Where the story of Interesting Facts About Space takes place
- United States, 2020s (2022 to 2024), the main setting