Author: Temi Oh
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Release Date: 7 Mar. 2019
ISBN-13: 978-1471171246
Synopsis
A century ago, scientists theorised that a habitable planet existed in a nearby solar system. Today, ten astronauts will leave a dying Earth to find it. Four are decorated veterans of the 20th century’s space-race. And six are teenagers, graduates of the exclusive Dalton Academy, who’ve been in training for this mission for most of their lives.
It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years spent in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong. And something always goes wrong.
My Review
I am the first to admit that I am not particularly a fan of anything Science Fiction. So how did I com to have this book? I went to a training session at work that was focused on current YA trends. We had to pick a book at random (they were wrapped in brown paper) and sit and read for 15 minutes. I picked this one up and the second I unwrapped it I groaned and thought 'oh no', but I followed the rules and opened the book and started to read. In those 15 minutes I got to page 28 and I didn't want to put the book down. I begged to be allowed to keep reading because I had been hooked in by the opening chapters and desperately wanted to know what happened to Jesse and the others. I wasn't sure exactly where it was going to go, but I knew I wanted to find out. Luckily, the course tutors were very kind and said that I could take the book to finish and return it when I was done.
That was a couple of months ago, life got super busy and I didn't find time to continue reading, this book got put in a bag and I pretty much forgot about it. When I was sorting through my work stuff the other day I found it and decided to make it my next read. I had to start again as I didn't really remember anything from those first few pages all those months ago, but once again I found myself drawn into the story and prepared myself for a surprisingly good read.
The book follows 6 teenagers who attend Dalton Academy - they are training to be Astronauts and have spent most of their lives working towards a mission to a newly discovered planet 'Terra-Two'. The first couple of hundred of pages is set on earth, getting to know the teenagers and how they got selected from hundreds of possible applicants and the build up to the mission. This part of the book felt quite slow to me and there is a lot of set up information and background stuff to help set the scene and get you to 'know the characters'. There is just enough going on to keep you reading, but I did find myself skimming some of the pages to try and get somewhere faster.
Then you have the week of the launch, one of the 6 teenagers changes her mind and does some pretty drastic things, so Jesse who is on the 'reserve list' is called forward to join the crew the night before the launch.
We then have the rest of the story which follows the crew into space. There are the 6 teens and 4 adults who are well known space veterans and know how to operate a space mission. We are told from the start that the mission will take 23 years to get to the planet, so I was expecting either a fairly slow story or a lot of time leaps. What actually occurred was a very slow story of basic teenage angst. The fact they were on a spaceship didn't seem to make any difference other than it was harder to avoid each other. One of them is depressed, one of them is a psycho, one is a bossy know it all, one feels isolated and like he doesn't belong, one is a loner etc. The chapters alter between each character narrating, but to me it was just 300 odd pages of them whining, moaning and having a go at each other, they were supposed to be a team and I know they experienced tragic events just before they left, but they should have dealt with it all a bit better, some of these 'teens' were almost 20 years old and should've behaved better, instead they came across like whiny little brats. I actually had to pause and check when it said that it was Poppy's 20th Birthday - i couldn't believe anyone who acted that way could be that old.
I think that was one of the main problems for me, there were 6 teenage characters, but they all kind of blurred into one entity, there was nothing striking or appealing about any of them. I wasn't rooting for any of them and I didn't really care about any of them. In fact I liked the adult characters a lot better and they hardly get a word in!
I persevered with the book because I wanted to see what would happen when they reached the new planet, but as the book progressed I realised that it wasn't going to happen.
About 60 pages before the end, disaster strikes, the ship suffers severe damage and they have to either wait for help or escape back to earth in the escape shuttle - catch is it will only hold the 6 teens, so the adults would have to sacrifice themselves and stay behind to die. Unless they can get help. This really changed the pace of the book and things started to get more exciting, I was hoping for an epic build up to an exciting ending. But no, I was wrong again. The ship gets help from another space ship that is orbiting, and they have to decide whether to continue with their mission to Terra-Two or head back to earth. And that's it. The book leaves you with them just floating in space, with a half-hearted 'we've come this far' sort of speech. At this point they are LESS THAN A YEAR into their voyage, there is still 22 years to go. I read over 500 pages for the book to get absolutely NOWHERE!!! I don't know if this has been done so that a second book can be written and continue the journey, but there is no way I could sit through another one that sort of length and have no more real progress. 22 years of travel is an awfully long time to write about, the author should have saved herself some of this hassle and said it was 10 years away, or at least something more manageable.
Overall I found this book highly disappointing and actually felt let down by the fact it didn't have a proper ending. The little bit of space element you got made it a bit more interesting,and I was surprised by how much I looked forward to having more information about the shuttle and space, but most of it could have been set anywhere, instead of it being a YA Sci-Fi, it was mostly just a teenage angst book.
I hate giving negative reviews, but I would not recommend this book, much too slow with characters I just don't care about.
My Rating
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