WHERE is that poem about that person learning all about their partners hyperfixation before getting dumped the last line is like “love is a stack of books on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end” I need it to feel whole help me please
He loves history. He wanted to write a biography of John Quincy Adams. I, shamefully, knew almost nothing about John Quincy Adams, so I went online and bought every biography of him I could find. One day, he called me, claiming that we wouldn’t work out long term. He said he loved me but that we had different interests. “What does love mean to you?” I said. “That’s an impossible question,” he replied. I, however, find love to be quite simple. Love is the stack of biographies on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end. — Julia Nicole Camp
I love that Ryland has all of his fun little T-shirts in the movie and the hacky sack/beanbag because it implies that Stratt went “hold on I know he’s gonna be mad as hell when he remembers what’s going on but he’s gonna need these”. I love her so much, woman of all time 
The book is so fuckin funny man. Just at some meeting and the crew goes 'ohhhhh are you two not dating. Yeah we thought you were just like. Stratt's lame loser boytoy who she kept around for reasons.' and mr asexual is over here like ??????????????WHAT???????????????
One of the things that they didn't get into in the movie Project Hail Mary but was so emotionally poignant for me in the book is that it really was a last and only hope, and they partially destroyed Earth just to send the spaceship off.
The breeding of the astrophage to make fuel for the spaceship took so much energy that Eva Stratt paved over half of the Sahara desert, causing the weather to change in Africa and Europe. She blew up Antarctica to speed up global warming so they wouldn't die of cold before the probes could return. Stratt is playing supervillain with the Earth in the hopes that at least half of humanity would survive. After sending the three astronauts to certain death, her job is to keep humanity together for long enough to save the sun.
I think it adds a lot to her decision to send Grace away. Yes, it was cruel, but she knows what is coming for her and perhaps many of the people on the Hail Mary project. She is going to hold Earth and humanity together for decades, as people blame her for destruction and as nations in all likelihood go to war over scarce resources. Then, even if they succeed, she will probably be vilified or even executed for what she did.
Stratt is standing in the wreckage of Earth, knowing she'll live and die in infamy. She sent Grace off knowing that if he succeeded, he'd be remembered forever as a hero. She tore the Earth apart so he could save it.
Edit to add a quote:
"I'm curious," I* say to Stratt. "Once we launch Hail Mary. What will you do then?"
"Me?" she said. "Doesn't matter. Once the Hail Mary launches, my authority ends. I'll probably be put on trial by a bunch of pissed-off governments for abuse of power. Might spend the rest of my life in jail."...
"Are you at all concerned about that?"
She shrugged, "We all have to make sacrifices. If I have to be the world's whipping boy to secure our salvation, then that's my sacrifice to make."
"You have a strange logic to you," I said.
"Not really. When the alternative is death to your entire species, things are very easy. No moral dilemmas, no weighing what's best for whom. Just a single-minded focus on getting this project working."
*the novel is First Person POV of Ryland Grace
(and yes she says she won't be in charge anymore after the launch but I feel like they'll leave her in charge because no one else wants to so she'll actually be done after saving the sun. The movie supports this. And the fact that Earth saves the sun in the novel tells me our girl held everything together because I don't feel like anyone else could)
project hail mary is insane bc the first half is like oh my god the world is dying and there's alien bacteria eating the sun and there's some guy alone on a ship and he's having a breakdown and the flashbacks are getting darker and this is a tragedy the likes of which i have never seen. then BAM andy weir says fuck you actually. here's this pokemon guy he's here to save the day with the power of friendship. and it's the best thing you've ever seen in your life
One detail from the book that didn't make it into the movie that I think is neat is that Eva Stratt did not just stumble across Ryland Grace. He was not the 'potentially disposable' option. She went to the top microbiologists in some of the best research labs in the world and was told multiple times "you know what? I think Dr. Grace might be your guy." When discussing the Petrova Problem. And this several years after his ejection from academia.
I was so scared they were heading for a romance subplot but congrats to Project Hail Mary for going for the far funnier option of 'Trolley Operator' and 'Guy She Is Actively Tying To The Tracks'. What a dynamic. Movie of the year.
Listen, movie Stratt and Grace were on a whole new level with whatever the fuck “weird secret third thing” they had going on between them, but let’s not pretend book!Stratt was normal about Grace. There was ZERO reason for him to be in the courtroom for the copyright suit. It had NOTHING to do with any “secret tertiary specialist” stuff. He arguably COULD have been much more useful in the lab. He sat there and said nothing and looked pretty for that entire scene. She dragged his ass on a plane just to sit there and he didn’t say a word in court. If that doesn’t say “this is my emotional support science loser” I don’t know what does.
