I was so interested in the idea and premise for this book, but it fell slightly short for me. The overall story was interesting but it wasn't executed in a way I entirely loved. I enjoyed it and I can't think of any flaws per se. I just couldn't really connect with any of the characters. I don't really understand the handmaid's tale and martian references, but I don't necessarily find that a bad thing. This is a good sci-fi adventure that doesn't really need to be compared to other things. It wasn't entirely unique, but satisfactory.

Dr. Valerie Black is covertly assembling an all-female team for a mission in spite of women being systematically forced out of the work force or sidelined to merely desk jobs. Humanity's errant disregard for Earth has doomed future generations chances of growing up on their own planet. The mission is fairly simple: steal a space faring ship and attempt a virgin jump to a planet with similar to Earth in the Goldilocks Zone.

Valerie has spent a significant amount of time and money cultivating and acquiring her perfect crew of five women. Hixon, a master pilot and among the only astronauts to make it onto Mars, Hart, Hixon's wife and the ship's resident doctor, Lebedeva, an exiled Russian engineer tasked with the ship's maintenance and last but not least - Naomi Lovelace. Naomi is Valerie's surrogate daughter as the botanist she is responsible for keeping the crew alive and their air breathable. She has been searching for a way to make a contribution to humanity's future and possibly a name for herself to finally become separate from Valerie and her mother's shadows.

When more than one hiccup starts to crop up while on board suspicions rise and Naomi digs for clues; hoping that someone isn't trying to conceal grim secrets from the team, in doing so she discovers that humanity's expiration date on Earth might be coming due faster than anyone ever thought possible.

I don't know much about astro anything so as far as this book being factual or the concepts in it being more than just a dream I can't honestly say. The concepts in the book are descriptive enough to explain but not enough to go over your head entirely, which was helpful. What I can tell you is that this book is amazingly different than anything that I have read in quite a while and it was refreshing. It's told from a third person perspective as a story told to our narrator and in the beginning it was a little more difficult to keep Valerie and Naomi straight in my head. The timeline isn't chronological but instead it jumps from Naomi's past to present but the chapters do include what part the chapter takes place in. The timeline of Goldilocks is dystopian but is not set very far into the future from our current time and the suffering of Earth and the issues the women face in the US don't appear to require a significant amount of stretching. 

This all female space faring crew faces many hardships; both known and curve balls thrown at them, as they travel first to Mars and then onto Cavendish. I feel like the book could have explored some of the characters within it a little more but it is Naomi's experiences and she wasn't exactly an extrovert. The plot of Goldilocks has more shocking twists contained within it than I would've imagined at just reading the book's description not only are they expertly crafted but also things that I didn't see coming.

Several mentions of this book compare it as a combination of The Martian and The Handmaid's Tale but I haven't read either of those to be able to agree with the sentiments. The nutriblocks consumed by our intrepid five woman crew remind me of Mush Bars from a game that I don't really have time to delve into any more (especially since it's grown even more complex since I first played it) called Oxygen Not Included from Klei Entertainment.

I can only highly highly recommend reading this book (even if you're not huge into books about space) to readers who enjoy space, dystopian Earth, thriller, suspense and space travel. A huge thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the opportunity to read this book - it was nothing short of stunning.

Fair space-going sci-fi. This, along with Across the void, has me annoyed at the state of future female astronauts. Why are women astronauts’ stories muddied with messy romance and, whoops!, space babies? Why is a story of intergalactic exploration, sabotage, back-stabbing, and equipment failure not enough; why do we have to show-horn in stereotypical “women” problems? More Captain Janeway, less YA drama and surprise babies, please.

Other than that, a decent read. The future world full of unchecked capitalism and its children seemed realistic. The evil, woman-hating government felt like it required a leap of faith similar to Vox, but considering what’s going on I the government today, maybe both of those are closer to reality than I like to imagine. The “bad guy” was unfortunately unexplored— selfish and willing to sacrifice humanity, sure, but not in a believable way. *Why* someone wants desperately to wipe out the species is more important than how they want to do it. Without that motivation, they’re just genetically evil, missing only the maniacal cartoon laughter.

3.5 stars. This book is extremely timely with gender inequality issues, environmental almost collapse of the entire earth, marginalizing politics. It really speaks to so many of the things that are plaguing us now in a future that seems really real.

This book is difficult for me to review. Overall I think the best word to describe this book is frustrating. Maddening at times. And then that decision at the end. Gah. That about killed me!! I just wanted them to go all the way... but I do agree with it overall. These women are marginalized in their lives in such a insidious sort of way. And they do rise above it but in very inglorious ways that are problematic. So it’s hard to really root for them. And worse. It’s not easy to even like the main character. She is just going along in her life in so many ways. She does fight for some things but doesn’t seem to really take charge of her personal life like she does her professional life.

The nature of this book lead to times when I couldn’t connect I was so annoyed and frustrated. By their dubious actions and by the nature of this world in general.

Wow! That was a ride!
In a very possible future, women are encouraged to quit their jobs-especially in science fields like space exploration. The world is dying and society also crumbles to extremist leaders. A small crew of five women launch from the Earth to steal a shuttle to a distant planet in another galaxy to live their own lives anew.
The majority of the book is told from the perspective of the Atalanta's botanist, Naomi. She's joins this mission under the command of her adoptive mother.
A virus begins to spread across Earth. At the same time in space, mother and daughter brought a few secrets on board the Atalanta that begin to unravel. The secrets have costs for some individuals and the future of humanity.
Goldilocks is everything I wanted and hoped for. It's a thoughtful look a feminism and choice. The effect of choice on the individual and the whole. Seriously, the theme and the actual execution in this book is unmatched in science fiction.
Laura Lam has a wonderful narrative and writing style that made this book so easy to read. She tells the story in a really mysterious way that leaves the reader questioning intentions an results.
I also really enjoyed the character and world building. I definitely understood the main characters very well by the end of the book. They felt real.
At the end, I was a little confused about some choices. It took a weird turn and introduced some other characters. After a few pages, I get it and it's a beautiful ending.
I loved everything about this book. So grateful to get an advanced reader copy.

*** Post is scheduled to post at 9am on April 21st, and will also be posted to instagram at that time. Review will be updated on the 21st with the instagram link. ***
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I received this book from Orbit through netgalley for my honest opinion. Goldilocks comes out on May 5th!

Laura Lam’s Goldilocks follows a scientific crew of five women on their mission to a recently discovered planet in the goldilocks zone. They are to make sure that the planet it livable and help begin the work of colonizing the planet. Except, with increasing restrictions on women in the workplace, these five women find themselves pushed out of the jobs they were promised. So, they steal the spaceship and take off to do what they are meant to.

Through a series of flashbacks, and through the dialogue and thoughts of the women on board, Lam builds a detailed world where women’s roles in society have regressed. Lam builds on what I would call Turmp-era politics, imagining a future where women’s rights are seemingly revoked: women are taken out of field positions, and pushed back into desk duty; they are passed over for jobs and denied promotions; and they are encouraged to get pregnant and take a baby bonus, an action that bars them from returning to work for five years.

On top of it all, humanity has thirty years or less left on earth. Global warming has gotten worse, no one has truly gotten a handle on industry, and there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of climate change orphans. Pollution is so bad that everyone must wear filter masks when outside.

I could see a version of the world like this, if the current political climate continued unchecked. I like to believe that we wouldn’t let things play out to this degree, at least with regards to the erosion of women’s rights, but I could easily visualize the reality that this book draws from.

Despite the high stakes on earth, and the consequences one would expect to see from stealing a spaceship (spoiler: there are no consequences beyond vague threats), this book was so incredibly slow. I kept checking my location in my e-book wondering when it was going to become a sci-fi thriller like I had been promised. At 50% of the way through, I wondered if it would ever happen.

Goldilocks felt more like an interpersonal drama than a thriller for the majority of the story. Told through scenes set onboard the ship and through flashbacks, Lam put a lot of effort into developing the relationship (and it’s tensions) between the protagonist, Naomi, and her previous legal guardian, Valerie. And I just…never really cared about any of it. The constant flashbacks were disrupting and made the beginning of the book stretch on endlessly.

I feel like the writing style also contributed to the sense of the book having a very slow pace. There was a significant amount of telling rather than showing.

When I finally reached the part of the story I would consider a sci-fi thriller, I was disappointed with how quickly the problem was resolved. Within the space of a few chapters the women went from being divided, to working together to take down the one member of their crew whose anger at the world and hunger for power combined to create a potentially world-ending cataclysm. It doesn’t take them long after that to stop her plan.

This might be the book for someone, but it was not the book for me. To me, Goldilocks did not deliver as the sci-fi thriller I was looking forward to reading. The stakes, while high, were not always realistic and problems were overcome too easily.

I would recommend this book to someone who likes to read books with interpersonal drama, and who enjoys reading books that examine the ways our current culture could evolve if we do not change.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books/Headline Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of Goldilocks in exchange for an honest review.

This book is being marketed for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Martian, and there are definitely elements of both books here. As climate change is in the final stages of making Earth uninhabitable for humanity, a group of five women are preparing to voyage to Cavendish, a planet 10 light-years away, to begin a colonization effort. But a group of conservative men win election in America and women are soon driven from the workplace. Leaving our five women with no choice but to steal the Atalanta and make the voyage on their own.

It’s a great premise, but somehow the story never came together for me. Too much of the societal backstory was presented in a huge info dump in the first chapter, when parceling that information out slowly seemed like a better way to build suspense. The plot takes an odd turn because one character becomes so unrealistically monstrous that they sabotage their own plans by forcing others to stop them. And a subplot involving a backup crew that could have been mined for innumerable plot choices was resolved much too quickly and unsatisfactorily. Ironically, for me Goldilocks was not too good, and not too bad, but right in the middle.

Here's what I liked: the plot, the spaceship, lady astronauts doing science, twists within twists.
Here's what was missing that could have helped me like the book more: I felt as if I barely knew any of the characters so it was hard to care when things happened to them. I should have deeply cared about things between Naomi and Valerie and I didn't, not even after all the flashbacks.
Still, I stress, I gave this book 4 stars because I had to know what would happen next and could not put it down.

[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.]

I hate to compare a book I’ve just finished to another but this is like if The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Martian. A nearly all female cast of characters do their best to change their lot in life. The idea of the Trolley Problem helping me enjoy this book is delightful. It fulfilled my need to have more female astronauts in my reading life. I can’t wait until this movie is released I will see it twenty times. I enjoyed the writing m. It flowed very easily and it never felt like there was too much science. Though I may be biased because I love science.

In the near future, Earth is doomed. Humanity has done nothing to stem global warming, and social changes are ever more regressive and patriarchal. On the horizon is Cavendish: a planet, ten light years away, in the 'Goldilocks zone' of its star, rendering it habitable to human life. Various space agencies have been working toward getting to Cavendish, but after the transfer of the contract from Hawthorn to Lockwood, the five women Hawthorn CEO Valerie Black had been planning to send on the mission hijack the spaceship <i>Atalanta</i>, aiming to be the first to land on the new planet and thus creating a new society that avoids the prejudices of the old.

I loved about 80% of this novel. After some necessary set up, once the crew is on board the <i>Atalanta</i>, the escalating crises and decision-making are thrilling, and the tension great. I was very, very happy that only the backstory the reader needs was filled in through occasional chapters set in the years before the launch of the shuttle, while the main plot follows the narrative of the spaceship theft/space travel. Of the five characters that steal the <i>Atalanta</i>, only Naomi Lovelace and her impressions of Valerie are clear early in the novel, but as things develop the other characters are brought in more. As the story goes on, the setting and the changes that have been wrought on Earth become clearer and more threatening.

The 20% largely comes down to what I felt was over-explaining the setting. As the narrative, particularly the flashbacks, go on, we get a sense of how women are being forced out of the workforce, how they are being punished for being child-bearers, and the justifications the government uses for these measure. We see the effects of global warming, and the presentation of private enterprises exploring space develops in interesting ways. In the first few chapters of the book, I felt that these things were being asserted rather thoughtlessly, as trendy decorative elements to the story that didn't entirely feel necessary. As the story went on, my position on this changed as the setting developed; by the end of the novel all of these complaints seems minor, but they are weighted to the beginning of the book, which might be off putting. So really the point here is that if this is annoying you, too, stick it out. But there remain a few instances that felt too blunt, like references to the trolley problem, that I would have preferred if they were more subtle. I think this is a measure of trusting your audience; at times I felt like I wasn't trusted enough to understand a theme without it being explained.

My final take is that <i>Goldilocks</i> is an excellent novel with some minor, irksome details. Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, and I recommend this novel when it comes out if you can cope with some of the aspects that become more relevant as we barrel into a future without a willingness to drastically change the path we're on as a species.

This one is hard for me to review as it really wasn't a story I enjoyed but not because of writing style or anything. It was just way out of my comfort zone, so please take my review w/ a grain of salt.

Climate change has made Earth almost totally uninhabitable, women have somehow lost any gain on equality that the #metoo movement has brought, there's a limit on how many children families are allowed to have without paying steep taxes... all in all we've gone to sh%*. Fortunately though, space travel has made enormous strides in finding it possible to claim a new home on another planet. Five women set out in secret, to be the first ones there, hoping to provide a little hope for humanity.

The first issue I had was just being confused and bored with all the technical language involved in space travel. Again, not the authors fault, just something that isn't all that interesting to me. For me this led to a lot of mind wandering and page skimming. Once the story picks up though, I enjoyed it much more than I expected to but it still was just an ok story with an ok ending.

This isn't a bad novel per se, and I think there definitely is an audience for it, but the writing just did not work for me at all. It left me feeling cold, and I never learned much about most of the characters or the world-building.

As climate change ravages the Earth and governments around the world gradually erode women’s rights, a crew of five highly qualified women steal a spaceship and travel to an Earth-like extrasolar planet. Never has a book’s premise so thoroughly appealed to my specific interests: science, space travel, climate change, feminism.

Unfortunately, Goldilocks suffered in its execution, and I couldn’t give it the full five stars I’d hoped I would. Its number one flaw was its cast of characters, especially its protagonist. Of the Atalanta’s five-women crew, Naomi Lovelace was by far the least interesting member. I couldn’t get a strong sense of who she was as a person. She was completely flat. Her four fellow astronauts had glimmers of promise but, aside from Valerie, were disappointingly underdeveloped, and the relationships between them went largely unexplored.

I couldn’t help but compare Goldilocks to other books with similar themes but much better execution: To Be Taught, If Fortunate and Good Morning, Midnight. The blurb mentions The Handmaid’s Tale, but Laura Lam only briefly touches on the treatment of women in this imaginary future. It also mentions The Martian; though Naomi may be a botanist, she is certainly no Mark Watney. Like Andy Weir, Lam wove real science into the story of Goldilocks, but she lacks Weir’s sense of humor.

Although Goldilocks didn’t live up to my high expectations, it was still an enjoyable read. It delivered on all of the things I was excited about. Lam included enough real science to make her premise seem realistic, without going overboard and scaring off readers (like myself) who aren’t scientific experts. Her world building effectively explored Earth’s potential future if humanity doesn’t take immediate, drastic steps to mitigate climate change. Again, I felt that a little more of the world building could have focused on the treatment of women. Lam outlines the misogynistic policies of near-future America, but doesn’t explain how they came to be.

What I enjoyed the most was the space travel, which was no surprise. The plot was engaging throughout and kept me reading. The ending left me with mixed feelings, but it also left me thinking, and that’s exactly what I look for in science fiction. I thought the “Thirty Years After” prologue and epilogue were unnecessary.

I liked this book. It was an engrossing sci fi space book. I liked the characters and the story held my interest.

I also liked the suspense aspect of what would happen throughout the book.

I would recommend this book if you like an engrossing sci fi story.

Book Review-Goldilocks by Laura Lam

I thought this was a fun and exciting sci-fi adventure into space. Naomi is part of an expedition to try to reach a “goldilocks” planet.

This book felt like a quick read, when I was able to sit and read it I flew through it! There was great suspense in this book and some things that happen that I was not expecting.

I enjoyed reading this book and I gave it 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

This book is everything.

Goldilocks takes place in the very near future, where the environment is so irrevocably damaged that humanity is likely to die out and politicians have slowly pushed women out of the workforce and into subservient roles. During this, five brilliant women, all trained astronauts, hijack a foray to a new plane to explore setting up a colony of humans. But there are secrets on board - layers of them. It has a touch of The Handmaid's Tale, and quite a bit of The Martian, but it's also uniquely its own. Lam explores motherhood and choice, climate change, family bonds, love, philosophical issues like the trolley problem, and much more, all while building a vivid world, and ultimately created a book that was nearly impossible to put down. In the current political landscape, and in the wake of a current epidemic, the future Lam imagines feels all too possible.

A solid hard-scifi story. Good science and suspense elements along with interesting characters made this compelling. This is from an experience author, and she knows how to effectively tell a good tale. She has a good imagination and includes what feels like realism into the story. Recommended.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

The Goldilocks Zone is what scientists use to describe as the habitable zone that can support life. What is life? It can be humans, animals, bacteria, microbes, or a number of other things. For the novel Goldilocks, the name also refers to the moral dilemmas facing an all-female team of scientists on board a commandeered spaceship as they find their mission, and leader, are not all they seem to be.

Goldilocks grabbed my attention because of all-female astronauts. Once I read the book, I found it was so much more than that.

This book was so cinematic and full and well developed. I could see it playing out in my head as a movie. Can someone make that happen, please?!

While there are twists and turns and jaw-dropping moments that had me hanging on to every page, what got me most about this book were the smaller moments. Moments such as one where words undermined a women’s life’s work. Many moments of women not having control over what happens to themselves in careers or childbirth. Just to name a few.

The science and the ship were super cool. I liked the explanation of the how of the artificial gravity, instead of it just existing. I liked reading about the struggle of getting the project funded. The details really made the story feel grounded. Real. And made it feel like it could happen in the not-to-distant future, for better and for worse.

As a woman, I absolutely loved reading this book and think that even if you don’t like the science fiction genre, more women should read this book. Men should also read it too, to save themselves from the pitfalls of the men in this book, but women will absolutely identify with Goldilocks and the story of these five women astronauts.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read Goldilocks as an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, a big thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for an ARC. I was very excited about this book to begin with, and it made my day to receive an ARC.

Goldilocks is cli-fi novel about a crew of female astronauts flying to Cavendish, a planet identified as habitable outside our solar system. There is definitely a sense of urgency because Earth has 20-30 more years before it becomes ravaged by global warming. While the crew members are all highly trained, there's one snag - they aren't the crew meant to be flying the ship. In fact, they aren't supposed to be on the ship at all.

While I took some time to be acclimated to the characters (in part because the first third of the novel goes back and forth in time), once I did, I was hooked. Naomi, her adoptive mother, Valerie, and the other women on the ship were interesting and believable characters, reacting to the news that their original mission had been sabotaged.

I didn't quite get The Handmaid's Tale reference, and was actually happy that I forgot about this hyped comparison until after finishing the book. If you're looking for The Handmaid's Tale in space, I think you'll be disappointed. If you want a gripping science fiction about environmental disasters, deadly secrets, and female astronauts, however, this is definitely the book for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for granting me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

24.02.20 3 stars
Goldilocks has been described as The Martian meets The Handmaid's Tale. It follows a five woman crew on a spaceship to a new planet - Cavendish. Earth is dying, and will soon be uninhabitable. The human race needs to start civilization again and build a new world from scratch. Women have been slowly pushed out of the workforce, being passed over for new jobs or promotions, and encouraged to stay home after having children. Five women who used to work for Nasa and other similar organisations decide it is time to take matters into their own hands. They steal The Atalanta which was scheduled to take a male crew to Cavendish and make the journey themselves.

Naomia Lovelace is the main character and the botanist on the ship. Her job is to grow viable food for the crew members and subsequently people on Cavendish. She was raised by her mentor and wealthy business woman Valerie Black who is also the captain of the Atalanta crew and the mastermind behind the grand theft auto. We begin to find out that things are not as they seem on the ship, motives are brought into question, and things back on Earth become even more dire. The women on the ship have to make some difficult decisions along the way, and it comes down to whether enough of them have an attack of conscience.

The narrative is totally from Naomi's perspective but it jumps back and forth in time with each chapter. We get to see past Naomi and events that led up to her agreeing to be on The Atalanta crew under Valerie. Sometimes there was a flash back within a flash back during the chapters from the past and I found that to be a little hard to follow. Also the past chapters didn't seem to follow in chronological order, I feel it would have flowed a lot better if they had. Naomi's development however is clear to see and I'm glad we got to explore it in so much detail. It really helps to understand her motivations and reasons behind her every action. Although I did feel it was too in her head sometimes and it would have been nice to get a break away from her thoughts.

Honestly I was hovering between 2 and 3 stars for this read. I liked the originality of the story line, and the tension in some parts was spot on. But mostly, I found it kind of slow going. I felt there could have been a lot more dialogue throughout to keep it interesting. It took a while for things to get going and for there to be any connection between the crew members. We always say as a reader 'show don't tell' but I think this writing style was definitely more telling rather than showing. It was hard to really picture everything happening in my head and stay focused. There wasn't much conversation between the characters until much further on. If this had been introduced sooner I believe it would have helped me to feel more connected to the women as a whole and not just Naomi.

Valerie I didn't like at all. Though I think that was the point. I don't think I fully understood her character, but she seemed to be mad at the world, the patriarchy in general, and a little power hungry. She clearly liked being in control. I did like the climax between Naomi and Valerie when everything came to a head, to me it was the most exciting part. I actually found myself not sure how it was going to end, which was a nice surprise as the rest of the plot working up to that had been somewhat predictable. Even some of those 'hard decisions' previously mentioned weren't that suspenseful, it was just a little too obvious what they were going to choose to do. Although it was very dramatic (view spoiler) which I appreciated, it kept my interested piqued.

I found the last few chapters really saved it for me. I flew through them as I just had to see what happened. It felt as though it had all been building up to those moments. I liked the romance between Naomi and (view spoiler) but I wish we could have seen more of it. There's only a few snippets in her flashbacks, but again it's more of her telling us what transpired between them rather than showing us and letting us see for ourselves. It made it hard to really feel the attraction between them.

All in all I would say it was an enjoyable and (at the end) an exciting read. I loved the concept and it really got me thinking about the state of our world and where it could be taking us in the future. I wish that could have been touched upon more in the story too. The pacing for me was a little too slow, and as I've said I would have liked some more dialogue between the characters to solidify the connection. I found I wasn't as invested in the plot as I could have been due to this. I did like the patriarchal politics that were at play, as well as the global warming issues that glared through the writing. And I was clapping the women on during their adventure no matter who it pissed off back on Earth.

I would recommend this as a fun sci-fi read with a bit of a twist!