4.5 stars rounded up. This is my first YA/new adult SF book and it was such a good time. This book touches on race, gender, sexuality, religion, family dynamics, mental health but it is just part of their lives, not a central theme of the story.

It's half character driven and half plot driven. We learn about this group of characters while on their mission to Terra-Two. I loved learning about them and seeing them change slightly (I think the book spans over a just a couple of years for the most part) and also loved the thrill of the mission and everything that happened along the way (I might have even shed a tear, ew). There were a couple of twists I wasn't expecting which is rare for me, an overall very fun ride.

Closer to 4.5 if I had the ability. First time a book inspired me to make a playlist! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5SwJj62mU8L04FeQerA1pj?si=a98ffATsSRWN_MsukgSNwQ

If you want hard science fiction, or adventure, or thrills, this is not the book for you!
If you are looking for emotion and character growth, this is for you.
This is a true character-driven story.

The central plot is scifi, yes. A group of kids (17+ year olds, but don't be fooled, this isn't the usual YA drama) worked for the majority of their young lives to earn a place on the first mission to Terra Two. A colonization program to a planet that can support human life. While a spot is a honor, it is also a one way trip. This book deals heavily with the feelings that surround leaving your world behind, and the people that would chase that dream. Also, realistically, whether the people that are chasing that dream are chasing it for the right reason.

We also have another emotional undercurrent. Dealing with loss. Not just the loss of a planet, and our family and our life as we know it. But one closer to home. We follow these children into space, something that features its own obvious risks. But we also follow their handling of grief. This book is spot on and shows the way that loss and grief affects everyone in different ways. Characters you don't like become likable and vice versa. But the beautiful writing and hard emotions made me hold nothing against all of them. Often I stopped to think about how I would handle a situation like this. The choices they must make, and the challenges they face both emotionally and physically (don't worry, there is some space drama) make this book feel raw and real.

It's difficult to discuss the plot much further than this without spoilers, so I highly recommend giving it a read if you are looking for an emotional character-driven story. This book may have "terra two" in the title, but it is not about Terra Two. This is a story about people and feelings, and it just so happens to be on a spaceship. Those emotions and how the characters act and deal with them is the plot. Not Terra Two. Terra Two is just a dream to all of them and the reader as the title implies.

This book was so refreshing, it made me feel things, and I was sad to leave the characters behind when I closed it. I finished it a few weeks ago and still think about it. A wonderful addition to the general and gave me Solaris vibes (as far as psychology and emotion goes).

Read it, but go into it expecting characters, not space drama, thrills, or even Terra Two.

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book and chose to review it. This in no way impacts my opinion.

Content Warning: suicide, mental health discussions, hallucinations, suffocation, death

This could have been an excellent novel. I love character studies and this could have been a fantastic one that looked at what it means to be locked up together on a generational ship. But it just missed so much for me because of the plot holes in just how shitty and mentally ill these characters were, which should have been a huge red flag in picking people to go up in space for 20 years!

This was actually one of my most anticipated releases of 2019 but I saw so many mixed reviews and put it off until now. And I kinda wish I had never read it. While the beginning was interesting, everything after like 30% felt like it was too slow. Then at the very end they throw in some conspiracy theories and reading it I was like "why are you telling me this now and not at the beginning?"

The characters are nuanced but not likeable enough for the reader to stay engaged and hope they all live. I also listened as an audiobook and with one narrator, it was difficult to know whose perspective we were in at some points in the novel, especially with twins!!!

Also no one had any forethought in this at all. They trained and got these kids ready for 10 years but didn't tell them how to set up society or think to just cyro them? Why? It's like this was set up TO fail, which makes no sense with how they wanted to get that rocket off the ground in the beginning.

I do not recommend this book.

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Intrigued but ended up being too much of a slow roll for me.

I might have bumped this up to five stars if my experience reading it wasn’t interrupted halfway though by my library loan expiring, and then not getting it again for three months after. But Oh pulls no punches with the brutal realities of space travel and with the reasons we might want to do it anyways. I had a lot of fun with reading that part.

Loved it,what a great first novel. It's nice to read about the complexities of relationships,rather than too much science.