This book was a disappointment. I picked it up thinking it was going to be about a twenty-three year long journey through space, and instead it was mostly a reflection on how people in their late teens/early twenties deal with loneliness. It wasn't bad, per se, just not at all what I expected. Also, and I'm not sure this was intentional, but almost every mention of sex or physical intimacy was treated as something the characters should be ashamed of or were disgusted by. This book just wasn't for me.

CW: eating disorder, suicide, deaths, terminal illness (cancer), depictions of depression and mental illness

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? was a rather unique start to 2022. The novel, which is Temi Oh’s debut, is a sci-fi YA narrative, following a group of six young people, who have trained from age 13 to become the first astronauts to colonize the Earth-like planet Terra-Two.

The story is slow-paced, but engaging. It takes its time to set the characters up from even before they go to space. I think exactly these looks at their childhoods and the space academy were the reason for the book’s emotional pay-off. The characters are deeply flawed, they struggle with their mental health and try to make sense of their mission through science, religion, esotericism, or unhealthy coping strategies – and all of this is informed by their past.

I wouldn’t recommend this novel if you want to read a hard science fiction, because it’s more about the psychological and moral implication of, as it’s put in the novel, “the ethics of filling students full of facts and then sending them off to found nations”. The story goes dark in terms of subject matter, which makes me think it’s more appropriate for an older teen audience – a crewmember’s suicide is an important even of the story, and the crew has to deal with the grief for their lost member, while they carry on with their mission.

This would be a 5 star book if it wasn’t for the ending - the incident that triggers the climax is too external. It doesn’t come from the characters or from their immediate environment, which is quite weird for a story that revolves around the characters’ personal conflicts and their doubts about the viability of the mission. However, this is a single critique on an overall great novel, and the amazing character work more than makes up for it.

I started to worry, around halfway through this book, that it wasn’t at all about the voyage to another planet as I’d been led to believe. But, less than a few chapters later, realised it no longer mattered.

It is, indeed, about the journey, but it takes in the genuine impact and emotional struggles required to get there.

Temi Oh perfectly rounds and moulds the young characters in what can seem, at a cursory glance, a little like a YA novel. But the necessity for this becomes starkly apparent when you reach the last section of the book.

I can’t say anything else without spoiling it. Read it but try to suspend your expectations, as even the cover is a little misleading, or open to misinterpretation, if you don’t.

Oh is a fantastic and accomplished new writer and I can’t wait to see what else comes from her heart and mind.

More introspective than I thought. A book that was highly reliant on character relationships and interactions.

Got me feeling existential over here.

Ok, my review now commences. I read the book and also discussed it with my Sci-Fi book club mates. I am softening my initial 5 star rating to 4 stars, but not because I didn't like it, but because I am downgrading from Amazing to Really Liked It for a few reasons I'll get to later.

But you didn't come all this way just to hear me talk about my rating scale. You want to know, why you should read this book?

I was utterly captivated throughout the book by the psychological state and readiness (or in most cases, extreme unreadiness) of the younger crew of the space ship. Facing a 23-year, one-way, leave-most-everything-behind journey, how would I react? Before they even launched into space I was already "all in" as the Beta crew (the junior members) struggled, celebrated, pined, or otherwise were happy to escape their Earth situation and trade in for 2+ decades in space followed by trying to start a viable colony on another planet.

Maybe I just never got past my own teenage drama years, or maybe I just remember them so well, but despite being 47 myself, the trials and struggles and complex emotional roller-coaster of these teenager/twenty-somethings was perfectly relatable to me.

Even the "slower" first 2/3 of the book I found compelling. The final 1/3 was simply gangbusters action (and of course drama) and kept me guessing as to what was going to happen to the crew of the ship.

Yes, there were a few problems my book club picked out, that I knew but didn't necessarily think were so much problems as I was just accepting the story as-is. But some of their points did make sense. A couple examples: 1. Why wait to start growing plants after launching? Why not have a crew up there planting already? 2. Why screen the teens for psychological readiness only to later reveal that

Spoiler

perhaps they deliberately chose teens that were NOT ready

.

At the same time there were things that my mind got stuck on without help from book club. A couple examples: 1. Why let them take only a small amount of possessions with them, such that they were already rationing their snack food after a few months? I would have been like, pack me 23 years worth of chocolate up front or I'm not going! 2. They talked so much about needing the acceleration to help them slingshot to get to their final destination, but surely they had to slow down to rendezvous at least twice - once at

Spoiler

Mars and again at Europa

? My mind couldn't quite work out that physics. My book club friends said orbital mechanics definitely needed a little help.

Overall I really liked the book. The premise may not be completely original, as my wife pointed out many stories have been written about other one-way trips such as the American migration westward or even one-way trips across the sea to colonize new lands. But something about a story set in an alternate 2012 (close enough to 2020 the year I read it), and leaving the ENTIRE PLANET BEHIND put this in a whole new category for me.

Final verdict is that character development and relationships were by far the front seat, with plot and some details taking a middle or even back seat. But don't let those sticky points get in the way from you picking up and devouring this debut novel by Ms. Oh.

Rating: a solid 4 out of 5 cat stowaways. (Just kidding, no cat stowaways, just felt like putting a little Red Dwarf into my review.)