Genre: YA Science Fiction
Release Date: April 25th, 2023
Pages: 320
Publisher: Dutton Books
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“Crash-landed on a desolate planet lightyears from Earth, sixteen-year-old Jessica Mathers must unravel the mystery of the destruction all around her–and the questionable intentions of a familiar stranger. Pulse-pounding YA science fiction from award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby.
For Jessica Mathers, teleportation and planetary colonization in deep space aren’t just hypotheticals–they’re real. They’re also the very real reason her scientist parents left her behind six years ago. Now she is about to be reunited with them, forced to leave behind everyone she knows and loves, to join their research assignment on Carver 1061c, a desolate, post-extinction planet almost 14 lightyears from Earth.
Teleportation is safe and routine in the year 2198, but something seems to have gone very, very wrong. Jessica wakes up in an empty, and utterly destroyed, landing unit from the DS Theseus, the ship where she was supposed to rendezvous with her parents. But Jessica isn’t on the Theseus orbiting Carver 1061c. The lander seems to have crashed on the planet’s surface. Its corridors are empty and covered in bloody handprints; the machines are silent and dark. And outside, in the alien dirt, are the carefully, and recently, marked graves of strangers.
Questions of self-determination and survival collide in this expertly crafted science fiction novel from Edgar Award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby. Kirby builds spine-tingling tension page-by-page in this imaginative and haunting story that spans both space and time.”
My Review:
Wow, wow, wow – I absolutely devoured this book! It was so freaking good!
I think all science fiction readers (adult and young adult) will enjoy this one.
The world-building is amazing and the technology of course is fascinating.
The characters are so endearing.
The story itself raises so many thought-provoking issues and considerations to our identities, consciousness, and what it means to be alive.
This book will hook you in from the first line and never let go. You’ll never expect the twists at the end – it had me so emotional.
This book deserves so much more hype and I will definitely be anticipating whatever this author writes next! I am obsessed with this book and I would absolutely love a longer, adult science fiction from this author too.
The symbolism of the cover will mean so much after you’ve read it.
I just can’t say enough good things about this book. If you like science fiction, you absolutely have to read it!!
Disclaimers:
Huge thank you to the author, publisher, and Bookish First for gifting me a copy of this wonderful story! I’m so freaking glad I got the opportunity!
Have you read this book? Planning to add it to your TBR?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
I love a good book discussion. 🙂
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