“A Wall is Also a Road” by Annalee Newitz

This is a story of first contact, sapphic romance, and graduate school.

Gardenpath is one of the Rational People, who are roughly human-scaled single-celled organisms living somewhere on the outermost fringes of the galaxy. Gardenpath has recently enrolled at Memory, the most prestigious graduate school for the Rational People. Gardenpath is planning to challenge two pieces of academic orthodoxy en route toward their doctorate. First is that life cannot possibly evolve amid the heat and radiation of the galaxy proper. The second is that obviously only unicellular life can be sentient. A sentient multicellular being? Preposterous! But as Gardenpath quickly learns, despite their stated devotion to discovery, the faculty of Memory isn’t all necessarily so open to being challenged.

So Gardenpath proceeds carefully, squeezing themselves into the shape of the dominant life-forms on an obscure planet orbiting an obscure sun, and studies both their biology and their culture. Specifically the organisms in a seaside settlement called Pompeii, at the foot of an active volcano, which leads to some truly fascinating food webs. And there is one particular organism called Murtis, who is obviously very highly valued among these people, as many of these organisms pay high fees for her company.

This book is two very different stories. One is going to be familiar to anyone who went to grad school - overbearing advisors, stressed out friends, massive intellectual insecurities, forgetting minor things like food and rest. The other is a story of humanity thriving regardless of social strata.

Newitz knows what they're talking about, both when it comes to life in the Roman Empire and life in graduate school. Both parts of this book felt very real and very (for lack of a better word) human. I feel like they shouldn't mesh well, but they really do. 

This book is as emotionally striking as it is creative (and I have to say it is extremely creative). I'd also call it cozy-adjacent, at least in vibes.

Obviously Murtis is a sex worker, and so there are trigger warnings for implied sexual violence though none of it is depicted on page. There's also an interaction between Gardenpath and their most shitty advisor that, while not explicitly sexual assault due to differences of biology, is described in ways that are analogous.