Do not wait to read this one. This is a book that kept me fully engaged from start to finish. I finished wanting more!

Florida 1986 and the start of the Space Shuttle program. Meet Nedda. 11 years old and far smarter than her years. Nedda has grown up in the shadow of the space program, in a small town called Easter, a short way from Cape Canaveral. Her father used to work for NASA, but now teaches at the small college nearby. Her mother is a baker creating fascinating concoctions. Nedda’s best friend is Denny, the son of a 3rd generation orange grower. Prater oranges are special oranges, everyone says so. They have a variety of grapefruit that is really special. Denny doesn’t much care about the oranges, but he cares about Nedda and machines.

Nedda’s parents have a secret that they’ve kept from her. A secret that has formed their future selves into what they are now. Nedda dreams of becoming an astronaut like her heroes. Nedda’s father Theo is building something in his lab at the college. Something called the Crucible that is going to change time. Something that is going to forever change Easter and the people who reside there.

While this book starts with Nedda aboard a ship heading toward an unknown planet, we spend time alternating between 1986 and Nedda’s current day on the spaceship. Swyler masterfully takes us back and forth to build the story about Nedda’s past and future. How a small girl with a huge mind helped to alter history once and again. It is also about love. Love of things and people.

I cannot say enough about this book. I stayed up way past my bedtime because Swyler created a world that was fascinating and frightening all at once. It is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Review also posted at bookwormishme.com

This book is absolutely beautiful. The narrative is split between present day, when Nedda is an astronaut, and 1986, when she's growing up in a small Florida town, with a scientist father who used to work for NASA. It's a work of speculative fiction, sure--but also a poignant reflection on relationships, family, death, and time.

Erika Swyler’s newest book, “Light from Other Stars” is complex, ambitious, touching, and masterful all at once. And it was exactly the best book to keep me turning the page during this endless January we’re having.

Author of “The Book of Speculation,” Swyler’s dual narrative follows Nedda Papas, who at eleven, witnesses the Challenger space shuttle launch – and subsequent explosion - at school in her hometown of Easter, Florida. Simultaneously, her father, a former NASA scientist, is testing his entropy-altering machine, the Crucible, and a terrible event causes the town to be swallowed into a sinkhole in time.

As an adult, Nedda is part of a four-member crew aboard Chawla, with the mission to lay the groundwork for a colony on a distant planet, because earth is dying out. Due to a pre-launch switch out of a critical element needed to support the spacecraft, the ship’s life support system is on, well, life support. And the astronauts’ health is deteriorating, starting with their vision.

To rectify the problem, Nedda reaches out to her mother, Betheen, also a brilliant scientist, who, after Nedda was born, and she lost a second child, a son, remained crippled by grief for years.

When the crisis in Easter envelopes Nedda’s best friend and her dad, Betheen and Nedda must work together, along with a local townsman who collects NASA’s junkyard discards, to set things right. And their solution to release the town from its bubble just may help Nedda and her fellow astronauts.

A story about grief, and loss, and love, and of course, secrets, “Light from Other Stars” is a wondrous book that stays with you long after you scan the last page.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The concept and the writing in the book are great; I was a little worried going in that it would be another 'great dad, ok mom who proves herself worthy of kids love' story. Instead, it was a great story of a mother and daughter bonding in a Stranger Things type of sci-fi setting. It fell a bit short for me in the execution, as the dual timelines felt clunky at time, but by the end it hit it's groove and left me feeling satisfied.

Thanks to Netgalley for this read.

This was a bit hard to get into. I was much more into Nedda’s real life vs. her sci-fi world. The sci-fi works threw me off every time when I was just getting into the other storyline. I ended up skimming a lot of scientific description to get to the plot.

Nedda’s real life story gave me A Wrinkle in Time vibes regarding her dad being a type of mad scientist and her following in his footsteps. I get that the sci-fi fantasy relates to her real life but I felt ambivalent about it.

I honestly liked Betheen’s character more than the others. I want to know more about her.

Overall, it was heartwarming even amongst the science themes.

I loved the premise of Light From Other Stars when I read it. The story lost me, unfortunately. It's not a bad story or badly written. I got lost somewhere in the scientific stuff, and I just couldn't maintain interest enough. I skimmed through probably half of the story. If scientific stuff is your thing, you'll like it. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

At first I found it difficult to adapt to the scientific terms that were being used. I mean, yeah they're astronauts but, wow I was confused at some points. Nonetheless, I managed to get used to them and follow the story. The time skips, as in from the past to the Nedda's present, kept the story interesting and added an element of mystery. At the halfway mark it started to slow as the characters tried to find solutions to things that were happening. But once it evolves things start to change and the story picks up speed. The writing was okay, there were times where I thought certain things could be cut, but it shows how young Nedda is at times. So it does make sense for her to ramble on at times. This book fed my space nerd heart. It was the perfect mix of space travel and on Earth problems. The ending was perfect, it left the reader imagining how life went on for the characters. Both stories show how powerful connecting with people is. On one side you have how close Nedda is to her parents, and then on the other you see how close the crew mates are. It was a great first sci-fi pick of 2019. The review will be up on my blog (ellasbookcorner.wordpress.com) on May 2nd

A novel about a father, daughter relationship and how a father's expectations shape a daughters life for good and bad. Though I found the dialogue dry at times it is worth a read

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley. I liked the characters in the book. But there was too much fantasy going on that I didn't feel I understood. Porbably a result of an excessive amount of physics that I don't really understand and then you have the task of suspending belief. So it fell short for me in that regard. A good fantasy sucks me in and I feel like the impossible becomes real in the story. I didn't get there or even close with this book.

This book was crackers bananas. Nothing I expected to happen, happened.

If you like a book that surprises you, this is it. Erika Swyler is skilled at unraveling secrets in a way that doesn't make you hate the characters. I feel like that's a talent, because in some stories, any person who carries a secret is not seen as such a nuanced person.

In Light from Other Stars, we are split between two moments in Nedda's life - her childhood and her adulthood. In her childhood, she is in Florida with her parents and we follow her post watching the Challenger explode. Aboard the spaceship, we watch as she supports her team through the many challenges that unveil themselves through out the book. Going into this, the element of sci-fi seemed to only be space related, but it turns out, time is what truly affects the characters.

I loved this book. Sci-fi is my preferred genre and anyone who likes it will enjoy this.

I will write a more extensive review as we draw closer to the publication date.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the advanced copy of Light From Other Stars in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the advanced copy of Light From Other Stars in exchange for an honest review.

This book is fascinating, shocking and still very much grounded in the real world, making it an incredible science fiction novel that doesn't even need to leave earth.
Although, it does inevitably take the reader into deep space by using 2 timelines as a narrative device, I found the most intriguing story developments happened on earth in the 1980s.
We are introduced to a few characters in the small Floridian town of Easter (near Cape Canaveral and NASA), but are mostly viewing the story through the eyes of Nedda, her mother Betheen, and father (disgraced NASA scientist) Theo.
Theo invents a machine that is intended to fight entropy, but instead wreaks havoc on the town of Easter and it's residents. As the book progresses, I found myself struggling to accept or respect what Theo had done, but the author does a wonderful job of challenging the reader to see all sides of the characters' circumstances.
Some of the descriptions of the "event" that the author provides are beautifully written in all their horror.
I really liked this book. At times it felt like I was reading scientific nonsense, and there's obviously a certain suspension of disbelief that needs to exist in the reader to not overanalyze the math or science involved, but the story as it unfolded, had me glued to the page.

The only reason I didn't rate this novel a 5.0 was just that the technical lingo was a bit much. It has been a long time since I have had a science class, and had to reacquaint my brain with the terminology. Other than that, this was an incredible read. Erika created such deep characters, and made them so enjoyable to get to know. You are rooting for them, and their situations.

There is quite a bit of bouncing between "present" time, and 1986 after the crash of the Challenger. Which threw me off a bit, but you get used to it. It ends up tying into the story in intriguing ways. You become sentimentally attached to young Nedda, and her good friend Denny. Their curiosity, and thirst for knowledge is endearing. They are intelligent children. Then, something happens, and your desire to know what happens overrules your need for sleep. It is more than just a story of past. It is about relationships between parents, and their children.

There is just to much more to the story than meets the eye. I had no ideas going into this novel, or opinions. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I recommend it to anyone with a penchant for science, space, family, and what sacrifices for the greater good really cost.

You find my blog review here. http://adabblingbibliophile.wordpress.com

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a digital ARC. Put this 4🌟 read out in May on your TBR. This is a beautifully written science fiction tale that explores space and invention, as well as relationships — between a husband and wife, a child and her parents, a child and her best friend, and fellow astronauts. I absolutely loved all the characters in this book and their interactions. My heart is full. The science aspects were a little over my head at times, but otherwise this is a book unlike any I’ve read. Highly recommend.

I knew nothing about this book when I started it other then the rather interesting description provided by the publisher on Netgalley. Light from Other Stars surperised me to put it mildly. It, is a slow burn that turns into a wild ride but you certainly need to be patient to get to the good stuff. I almost DNFd this book because at first it was so confusing, so disjointed I just could not get into it. However, it is worth the build. In retrospect I believe the format is entirely intentional and completely makes sense towards the latter half of the story.
Nedda is a young girl living in small town Florida in the late 80’s who dreams of being an astronaut. She has grown up with two brilliant scientist parents who are fractured from personal tragedy. Her father, a former NASA employee, has put all his waking energy into developing a project that changes time as we know it. This project, his madness is his way of trying to put purpose and meaning into the loss of a child. At school Nedda witnesses, live on television, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster with the other students , her best friend Denny among them. Challenger’s catastrophe and the loss of life changes Nedda and only increases her desire to be a part of the space program. Fast foward to the future and Nedda is in fact an astronaut. We are given fragments of an adult Nedda working with a crew in space throughout the story in alternating chapters
Back in the 80’s Another catastrophic event happens changing the very fabric of time for 11 yr old Nedda, all those she loves and her entire home town. These events spawned by her father’s work are both shockingly tragic, and fundamental in the survival of mankind in the universe.
Light from Other Stars is a timely read in the current wake of our world issues involvng Climate change, overpopulation and environmental disasters. This book opens your mind up to possibilities and consequences of human action on earth today. Its a wonderfully inventive stretch of the imagination that doesn’t really seem like such a stretch but rather a very real possibility. A read that I highly recommend to anyone.

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a good story to it. I liked the variety of characters in it. It is my first book read by this author. I hope to read more books by this author.

This is a deeply beautiful book (more like a 4.5 for me), although it has a promotional pitch that is perhaps misleading.

Indeed this book consists of two parallel stories: Nedda's father's science experiment going array when she is a child and flash forward scenes aboard a space ship when Nedda is older and an astronaut. What I think you DON'T get from the promotional copy is that this book is sci-fi and those elements will figure prominently into one (and ultimately both) of these plot lines.

I only mention this because when this book first went into that sci-fi direction, it threw me for a loop. Nedda and her friend Denny have an exceptional morning (as many kids in my generation did) watching the Challenge disaster on TV at school. Being that this is a story about a girl who ultimately becomes an astronaut (who adorable muses to herself as a child, "it was stupid to send grown men into space when a girl would be a better fit"), it feels like this desire to go to outer space will be the main narrative thrust of the plot.

However, after the crash the kids encounter a small monkey that's captured in a kind of space/time bubble and things get decidedly weird very fast. If you're down with that sort of thing, then buckle up...you're in for a fascinating ride. If however, you were expecting more of a family drama with space themes, you may be disappointed.

In some ways, reading this book requires a level of trust in the author. The plot spirals out in all sorts of unexpected directions that might have some readers pausing to ask themselves, "Wait, what?" But, if you stick with it, all of these points ultimately connect to each other and fit together seamlessly by the book's conclusion to create something beautiful.

I'm also giving this book bonus point for having an incredibly kick-ass mom character in Betheen. Would that all of us had the skills to handle a huge life/existential crisis so gracefully and parent so smoothly. "Be scared" she says to her daughter at one point, "But don't let being scared keep you from doing something. Important things are always frightening. We can be scared, and we can work scared." (Can someone make Betheen our next President?)

My only quibble with the book (and it's a small one) is that I would have loved to gotten to know more about the townspeople in Easter. But I think if we did this would have been very a different book--a book about a strange event in a small town. And ultimately this book has bigger goals--examining loss and fear, family and survival. I'm thankful to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The acclaim Erica Swyler’s debut has gathered was enough to put her on my radar, so that when her sophomore book appeared on Netgalley, with an enticing description no less, it was an easy selection. But, as it turned out, not a great one. Or I should be really specific, not a great match for me as a reader. But that really was a surprise, because it utilized so many of instant attractors for me…space traveling, scientific experiments (as a bonus resulting in temporal disturbances)…those two alone should have been enough to wow me. And to be fair those elements are done very well, the space traveling is rendered with meticulous attention to details of the privations and difficulties of such an endeavor and the experiment is pretty wild, what didn’t quite work for me was the writing. It was lovely in its way, poetic almost, easy to objectively appreciate, but subjectively, as reviewing inevitably goes, it didn’t sing for me. Just a good old fashioned lack of chemistry between the author and the reader. I’m sure this book is going to find an adoring audience upon its publication. For me it was distractingly dreamy, disjointedly structured and those factors consistently drew attention away from the genuinely interesting and original plot. It’s entirely possible that a differently stylized narrative of the same story would have had me love this book. But no, this just didn’t engage and an emotional disconnect from a story as emotional as this one is…well, not ideal. It read ok, quickly even and entertained, but it seemed like a sort of thing meant to elicit a stronger reaction and it did not. Interesting how it works out when the plot outshines execution. Thanks Netgalley.

Wonderful plot and prose, with unforgettable and relatable characters; Swyler's novel is filled with dreams, nostalgia and science and moves the reader to tears.

Wow!!! .... I was left with a big lump in my throat as I turned the last few pages. I sat quietly just staring out the window.
It’s not a book one easily jumps away from and walks off quickly.
It’s a book that transforms us....one we continue to reflect.
It brims with heart - pleasures and pain between parents and their children. It’s a highly imaginable story - one that expands our horizons between earth and space.

This novel is wonderful - extraordinary - incredibly ambitious.....and as ambitious as its heroine: *Nedda Papas*.

Eleven year old Nedda wanted to be an astronaut. She wanted to go to the moon, walk on its craters. She wanted her own space shuttle and to feel what weightlessness was like.

The story begins when Nedda has already been in outer space for two years. “Aboard Chawla”. There are three years left before arrival.
Meet the other crewmates:
Evgeni - His eyesight was suffering. It was progressive astigmatism due to lack of gravity.
Amit Singh - Mission Commander
Louisa Marcanta - physician
Dr. Stein - psychologist

From Outer Space:
Nedda remembers ‘home’ .....remembers her family - mom, dad, and close friend Denny....and others in her community.
Nedda remembers “running between rows of orange trees, bare feet against rough soil, the dusty yellow dirt, crabgrass where the trimmers couldn’t reach, flies.”
“She missed Denny. There are parts of his memory she would never be privy to. Yet they were tied together by the orange grove from a trauma as much as friendship. Yet they hadn’t talked since she left for Mars”.

“Chawla has a heartbeat - listening in the dark to the sounds of the module helped her stop thinking of home, about Danny, and about her parents.”
“Chawla was the first ship to tie life support to an accelerated radioisotope thermoelectric generator. ( called Amadeus) Amadeus where is separate from the engines, powering the module when it served as shelter. Amadeus meant deep space travel for humans.

We follow Nedda during her childhood in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town - and into outer space.
During Nedda’s childood - her scientist father, Theo, invented a time-altering machine. There are secrets her father has been keeping related to this machine. Nedda will discover her dad’s secrets and have choices to make.
Nedda’s mom, Betheen, could bake like nobodies business....”Champagne Water cake?”, anyone? Customers often asked why her baking was better than anybody else.....”because I’m a chemist, asshole”, The words always threaten escape!

We meet several unforgettable characters in Easter, Florida.
The town is small. There are personal tragedies - the kind that leave permanent scars.....the kind that no matter how far into outer space one goes - those tragic memories don’t get erased.

And there was The Challenger memory:
On Jan 28, 1986....the NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff killing 7 astronauts. Nedda was in her 5th grade class at school. Her teacher, Mrs. Wheeler, turned on the classroom television for the kids to watch the shuttle launch. She and her classmates watched 7 people die. Judy Resnik, school teacher, heroine to many children, was gone.
I’m reminded of watching myself. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years.

Filled with dreams, passion, challenges, empathy, grief, love, loss, with insightful prose that is simply luminescent.

Thank you Nicole and Bloomsbury Publishing. And many thanks to Erika Swyler...who captured a world so internal an intimate - that these characters ( especially Nedda), will be etched in my memory for a long time.