This book was incredibly bittersweet yet simultaneously awe-instilling for me. As I finished its final pages I was left haunted by Anna’s yearnings, along with questions that I’m sure Genki Ferguson purposefully left unanswered to the reader. I didn’t even have any expectations going into this nor did I understand the synopsis fully—I was just especially pleased to support a local author.

Satellite Love weaves together elements of loneliness, introspection, identity, and the longing to believe in a greater power. Over time as I read this I became increasingly disturbed by Anna’s delusional state, and I think Ferguson did an incredible job at giving readers the ability to peer into her own mind & justifications, while seeing perspectives of how other characters view her (either through a lens of pity/intrigue, kindness/appreciation or love/concern). This was effectively disorienting for me, as the further I got into the book, I tried to determine for myself what was real and what wasn’t. I appreciated the incorporation of Shintoism and religious undertones, which also added a mystical element, and further beauty to the novel. Also, as someone who has Alzheimer’s run in my family, I was able to personally appreciate the grandfather’s segments showcasing his POV and confused thoughts.

The passages from the Satellite’s perspective were surprisingly introspective and beautifully well written—probably my favourite parts of the novel. I found myself tabbing several pages with memorable quotes. It has been a while since I have immersed myself in a story in such a way that I enjoy the process of reading it so much that I do not wish for it to end, and wish to bask in it.

I think the characters of Satellite Love will haunt me forever.

This is a charmingly weird book. There are four characters whose perspectives we see from at various points and one of them is a satellite. Eventually known as Leo, the satellite starts out in space, operating as, well, a satellite, but later takes on a much different form, becoming intimately involved in the lives of the other characters.

Anna is our primary character, the one human who we view most closely and frequently. Frankly, Ferguson’s handling of Anna’s character is tremendous. Because we are first introduced to Anna through her own perspective and then through the perspective of others sympathetic to her, it takes the reader a while to gain a full view of who she is. Anna is an outsider, the daughter of a white father and a Japanese mother, living in a crumbling city in Japan. Her father is no longer involved, her mother often absent, so Anna is largely alone. Her grandfather lives with her and her mother but is declining rapidly into dementia, unable to remember his own life and often unaware that Anna even exists. Anna is an outsider at school with few friends. When she notices a satellite in the sky, she begins to talk to it, to imagine about it. And the satellite responds.

Soki is the new kid in class, the son of a former Shinto priest who has abandoned his faith. Soki is a little odd as well but better able to adapt than Anna is. When Soki and Anna meet they seem to connect and we see Anna through Soki’s eyes. A little strange but likeable. However, as Soki meets and connects with other kids his age, the reader becomes more aware of the disconnect between the Anna we see and the Anna everyone else sees. Is Anna more sinister than we initially realized? She is a lost and confused teenager but how much danger exists when a young woman loses her grasp on reality?

The fourth perspective we follow is Anna’s grandfather. We delve into his mind only a few times, his confusion about where he is, who Anna is, what happened to his life. It’s disorienting but feels very honest to what life with dementia might be like. It’s also a brilliant contrast to Anna’s separation from society. Anna is separate from those around her due to the abandonment and absenteeism of her parents and the way she turns internally to her own created world. Her grandfather is separated by disease but neither fully understands what’s truly happening around them, nor are those around them able to see the world through their eyes.

There are some strange developments in this novel and I think it worked best knowing very little about what was going to happen. So I don’t want to give too much away or get into the details of what happens to the satellite. The setting is extremely well-executed, a crumbling, unfinished city in Japan. Tied into this as well is a lot of Japanese culture, including Shintoism, a belief system I know very little about. Both Anna and Soki are searching for answers, Soki branching away from his parents for the first time ever.

This is the debut novel from Genki Ferguson and it’s exciting to see a new author take such a bold approach to fiction. I’ll be looking for more from Ferguson.

Very inventive/unique story about a girl who develops a relationship with a satellite. Takes place in 1999 in Japan where the country and the city of Sakita are stuck in a time warp. Anyone who appreciates Japanese culture and Shintoism will love this book. Gorgeous writing from a new young Canadian author!

𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒈𝒐 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅. 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒐.

When Anna was younger, she spoke to satellites, but now that she’s older, they don’t respond. A lonely satellite herself, she has a lot on her shoulders, caring for her elderly grandfather who is lost in his own confusing world of senility while her mother is gone weeks at a time. In his mind, that is more of a sieve, he forgets he has a granddaughter and it is his ever questioning mind, lost in a maze of time, that is heartbreaking. At school Anna is an outcast, to them, a child who will never grow out of her fantastical daydreams, a target to be mocked and ignored. It seems no one in her universe understands her but one night a Low Earth Orbit satellite, Leo, comes to life under her penetrating gaze. The birth of Leo is a gorgeous meditation on what makes us real, the grace of love and attention, in stark comparison with the erasure of indifference.

Leo learning about humanity, and Anna’s world in particular is both horrifying and exhilarating. That even a satellite turned boy can immediately pick up on the ostracism, the parts of herself that make her stick out and put people off, makes for an emotional study of our intolerance. Anna’s life, he observes, is nothing but a constant test she is bound to fail.

Anna wants Leo to become his own person, to combat becoming her mirror. He is just a ghost of a thing, unseen to all but her. Anna is Leo’s creator, and is ashamed of bringing him to this rotten earth. Anna is many things, but like all of us, she is deeply flawed and Leo isn’t the only being she has brought to life with her hungry need for love, friendship. Soon, Leo spends his time trying to comprehend his creator, but she is just as alien to the world she inhabits as he. Her tragedy slowly unfolds with Leo as her sole witness. Anna realizes her mistake was in bringing Leo to earth and devises a plan, she will build a machine that will put the two of them where they truly belong, and as the millennium comes to a close (it is 1999, Japan where the story takes place) timing couldn’t be more perfect.

Soki has moved with his mother and father to Sakita, dissappointed in this new city that feels like ‘a city filled with ghosts’. A forgotten place left behind by the rest of the world, lacking in progress. His father hails from a long line of Shinto priests in charge of looking after the shrine, one day he left it for good, never explaining why. This has been a great shock to Soki, whose path was to follow in his footsteps. His father now works as an ‘urban planner’, the family of three moving around often, leaving Soki yearning for their life before. In the city mall parking lot Anna happens upon their car where he sits waiting for his mother, and the two strike up a conversation. The two cross paths again at school, and fall into a discussion on religion, and ‘kami’. Will he become her friend or turn out to be just like everyone else?

There are moments the author so perfectly pins what it means to be human, ” I had been so caught up in Anna as an idea, I had forgotten about Anna as a person.” It is an absolute for us all as we are all guilty of loving versions of people, of casting them as we see fit in our own story. We are always projecting our needs and our demons, missing the sum of one another, and we must include ourselves, denying our own parts, sometimes only seeing the edges of who we are. Anna is slipping away, and no one of flesh and blood (beyond her satellite boy Leo) is truly playing witness, caught up in their own life stories. Anna fails Leo too, though, as she has her other imagined creations. There are other characters that make for an interesting read as we journey through Anna’s mind. Anna visits an elderly, deaf and blind man named The General. His life is shrouded in mystery and as they communicate through Morse Code, she is digging for wisdom and missing what is in front of her eyes.

Nothing about life is any clearer for Anna than it is for her senile grandfather, new boy Soki nor Leo. She is struggling and all she wants is to escape into the vastness of space. I ached for each character but Anna most of all. What a gorgeous novel.

Publication Date: March 2, 2021

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McClelland & Stewart

Satellite Love is a unique book! Set in Japan, this is the story of a Japanese-American girl who is struggling with her reality. She has imaginary friends that help her cope but there is still a lot to process and make the world a better place. I love the different point of views in the story - Soki, Anna, the grandfather and Satellite gave a holistic view of Anna's life. The storytelling is visual and calming.

LEO comes down from the sky and becomes an important part of Anna's life. As an outcast, it is important for Anna that LEO think well of her and like her without any obligation. The only book that comes close to a similar narrative and relationship is Cecelia Ahern’s A Place Called Here and it has been a long time since I have read that. I enjoyed the relationship, even though it is based on a rough past.

This was an engaging read with lots to think about! Thank you so much to the publisher for proving me a review copy. Discussion on Armed with A Book blog on the 2nd!

Satellite Love is an imaginative approach to grief, loneliness, abandonment, trauma, coping, and maneuvering teenage years. I really enjoyed the various points of views and the simple but engaging way the plotline progresses. The setting is perfectly imaginable, and as the reader I felt empathetic to the plights of the different motivations and burdens each character holds. It's existential without too much navel-gazing, and holds onto hope even in some of the most dire times.

This might be one of the odder novels you'll read this year but stick with it for a sympathetic look at a lonely young Japanese woman. Anna is 16 and she's coping with becoming the caretaker for her grandfather who is descending into dementia. Is it any wonder then that she latches onto something which gives her an out? In this case, it's the Low Earth Orbit satellite, which she believes is communicating with her. This is where things get a bit strange but keep reading and you will sigh at the end. Thanks to Netgalley for the Arc.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The cover of this book is great.
The storyline is unique.
The characters were well-developed and easy to like / relate to.
Overall, a solid read by a new - to - me author.

I enjoyed this book. I quickly became engaged with the point-of-view characters, who were unique and thought-provoking. There were a few points where I had trouble suspending my disbelief, but I was always invested enough to keep reading, and I'm glad I did, because I thought the ending was really well done. This is a solid debut, and I'm looking forward to reading more from Genki Ferguson in the future.

I thought this was an okay read. It started out strong, and I loved the focus on a teenage character who was going through a lot in her life. The understated but moving writing style really reminded me of the Japanese novels in translation that I love. There's a lot in this novel about growing up and loneliness, and I appreciated how those themes were handled throughout. What I struggled with in this novel was the plot, and some of the writing in one of the POVs. There were parts of the plot that felt really unnecessary to me, and ended up distracting from the rest of the story. They felt like they didn't fit in at all with the tone that the novel had been developing throughout. Another is that the writing in one of the POVs was very jarring, especially because every sentence started with a verb. It was a small thing, but the more I noticed it the more it began to distract me from the story. I would definitely be on the lookout for more novels from Genki Ferguson, but sadly this one wasn't for me.

At first, I didn’t know what to make of this strangely imaginative story. But the more I read, the more entranced I became. There is much here about the Japanese culture, the Japanese gods, faith versus religion, and a young teenager’s fragile mind. I was gently pulled into the story and found myself continuing to read to find out what would happen to Anna. There are some sentences and paragraphs that are wisely poetic, or poetically wise… I can’t decide which! I have a feeling that this novel will remain in my thoughts and my heart for a long time to come.