Terra-Two is humanity's hope for the future. A new planet. A new chance at life. Ten specially selected astronauts will make the first journey and start the process of colonisation. It will take 23 years to get there, so six young adults are selected to accompany the more experienced astronauts. But things start to go wrong even before they've left Earth...

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is a character driven exploration of what happens when you send a group of barely adult astronauts on a one-way mission. It's set in an alternate version of history, where a planet was discovered a hundred years ago which could sustain human life. That planet is Terra Two, its discovery fuelling a space race and resulting in Britain having a space programme.

The younger astronauts attended the elite school of Dalton. The story starts as they find out if they've been chosen or not. They come from various backgrounds but have all been working towards the dream of Terra-Two for years. I loved getting to know them all. The focus is on the young adults, and I do say young adults over teenagers as they are pushing twenty. The themes are reminiscent of the new adult sub-genre that failed to really emerge a few years ago.

Whilst they knew each other at Dalton, and Astrid and Juno are twins, they are not really friends with each other. They must learn to live in close quarters, having arguments over missing chores, or being a bit too competitive. Harry is suspicious of Eliot and Jesse and Poppy retreats from social interactions.

They must all come to terms with their decision to leave Earth. It's not action-packed, even when emergency strikes, it's often drawn out, much like life in space must be in reality. The science generally seemed quite close to real, current day science too. It felt like it was written by someone fascinated with space travel. I loved my time with them and felt attached when it was time to say goodbye.

I was a little sceptical for much of the book on the size and selection of the crew. Why only ten people, when something could easily incapacitate them in 23 years? They supposedly had strict psychological evaluations at Dalton, so how on earth did this bunch make it? Harry is not fit to be a leader with his arrogance and bullying. Juno has an eating disorder, one she has been doing her best to hide. Poppy is depressed. And then there was the suicide at the start. However, during one conversation, the characters also ponder this, maybe they had ulterior motives for sending this crew.

I could not get past how badly this space program is run, and I've listed some of the issues below (lots of spoilers!):

Spoiler

-They didn't notice and/or care about serious mental and/or physical illnesses in their crew. This includes hallucinations, antisocial behavior, eating disorders and cancer. Despite of most of the crew members being in their care for many years.
-They didn't postpone the mission when one of the crew members committed suicide the day before launch. The reason given is vague, something about having sold tickets to watch the launch. I dunno, I would assume the cost of a failed launch/mission of this magnitude far outweighs the loss of the tickets sold.
-They fired the crew member in charge of their health because of the suicide, and replaced her with someone new that the rest of the crew did not know. Just before launch. A completely new person they don't know. This seems risky.
-They did not train the backup crew in the exact same things as the main crew (doesn't that defeat the purpose of a backup crew?)
-They did not instruct the crew on what sort of society they were going to form on this new planet, apparently they didn't think about this at all, and the crew members didn't notice that they lacked this information.
-They did not seem to train the crew very well in handling isolation, nor did they consider the compatibility between the crew members as important, apparently..? This seems like a flaw when you're putting a bunch of people together with no way to escape, for two decades.
-They plan on putting pregnant women in cryosleep to travel, and it is not explained why they don't do this with the first crew. If they have the technology, surely this is something they could do to all or some of the first crew, rather than have them be awake and aware for 23 years.
-There are some conspiracy theories launched towards the end, about how the people in charge knew that there would only be about a 20% chance of success, and also that maybe they didn't pick the best people. This isn't explored further, and does not help. Why would they risk losing this much money, not to mention their face and reputation if it was ever discovered that they were up to something this unethical? The competition aspect between nations does not seem strong enough. It is possible that this would be the author's ticket to explain away all of the other issues too, but it is just not explained. Possibly because of how the story is told, through the eyes of the youngest members of the crew.

I liked the idea, a crew slowly on its way to a possible paradise. I also liked the author's prose. But immersion was impossible for me, because of all of the issues above.

PS: I actually wanted to like this book so much that I accidentally bought it twice. Two different covers.

This is kind of slow but the end really packs a punch. I am still thinking about it.