This book is a lot to take in. I usually fly through books but it took me several days to finish this one. The writing was sometimes too detailed. I found myself skimming over parts of the book even though I wanted more from the story. I felt like there was still something missing. I struggled to connect with the characters. Sci-fi is a struggle.

This is a fantastic fiction debut. The author, Jeffrey Kluger, is a senior writer for Time magazine and has written several nonfiction books about space. For me, that meant he did a great job of explaining the more technical parts of "space" in a way that was easy to understand but didn't feel clunky. If you've ever read a sci-fi book and thought "okay, but how does that WORK?" you will dig this element. Does this mean that sometimes the pace of the book felt a little slow? Yes. But the story still hooked me.

What surprised me is that there are a lot more political machinations and subterfuge in this novel than I anticipated. Again, I was expecting action! in space! And that is part of the book, but a huge part is the political intrigue and focus on conservation. Think Tom Clancy on a space station.

One of the best elements of this book are the two main characters, Walli and Sonia. I think sometimes an author can present a female protagonist and claim "look! strong female character!" just by virtue of them spending the most amount of time on the page. But I want more than that from my women leaders and this book delivers. Walli is an accomplished fighter pilot and astronaut, living on a space station, and Sonia is an accomplished doctor, stationed in the Amazon rainforest. Aside from their bona fides, they both stand up for what they believe in and their convictions really drive the novel.

If you like smart action and strong characters - and aren't afraid of a little science - I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for access to this book in exchange for my honest review.

A story we're familiar with - something happens causing the MC to go against their direct work orders/authority figures in order to save the world, or save a group. The writing went well with the story, making this a great read for anyone who loves space/sci-fi dramas.

This is 100% not my normal genre, but I loved everything about this book. I loved the characters so much; I didn’t want it to end. If you’re a sci-fi lover, this is right up your alley. If not, you should still give it a try!!

This isn’t solely a science fiction book that takes place in space. Instead, it ties space, specifically the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth. Walli Beckworth, an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are on the ISS when a supply mission goes wrong. They narrowly avoid catastrophe, but the small impact created some problems especially for the three humans. The protocol is to abandon the space station and at the last minute Walli doesn’t board the shuttle stating she “Prefers not to.” Thus, begins her time as the “holdout” and the reason the world soon learns is to protest over the burning of the Amazon forests, destroying the ecosystem and native peoples of Brazil. Walli not only has the environmental concern in mind but also her niece who is more like a daughter, caught up in the middle of the fires as she is there as an aide worker. She asks the United States to intervene, which coincidentally a vote is scheduled just a few days away.

We have many viewpoints in this story, ranging from the presidents of Brazil and the United States, political figures, Russians, and of course, Walli and her niece. The politics and protests take up most of the book, but there are a few “space” moments when the space station is in peril and Walli has to do a space walk which she wasn’t trained for and is unheard of doing this all alone. Also, what happens when the Russian shut down part of their modules.

I didn’t feel very tied to Walli or her story, or really to any character in the novel. There were so many views presented that the story didn’t feel solid in any one way. I had hopes for more of a space story than a political one. This book has the feel like The Martian but it didn't reach quite that far, not enough character development of Walli and too much on the ground to balance out.

This book was not what I expected at all. I expected space and astronauts and page-turning critical disaster, but all of that was hugely glossed over in service of descriptions of an astronaut's numbingly boring days on ship after she decides not to return with her crew after an accident and surface-level snippets of a conflict in the Amazon that were so dry I still don't feel like I understand what the conflict was even about after finishing the book. For a book with an astronaut on its cover, this book has almost nothing to do with space at all. And it is most certainly not sci-fi. Except for the part where it's super racist and colonialistic. That part is super on-brand for the genre.

Walli Beckwith is an astronaut's astronaut--Naval Academy educated, certified on just about every aircraft in the Navy's fleet, and even named after an astronaut to boot. When she finally gets her chance to go to space, her mission is cut short by a docking accident with a supply ship. After one of her crewmates is severely injured and must return home, aborting the mission, Walli decides she only has one option--she simply will stay on the ship.

Down on Earth, a conflict has been raging in the Amazon, on the border of Brazil and Bolivia. An American doctor named Sonia has been on the ground to help, but rebels opposed to the doctors' presence are making that quite difficult. They have set the forest on fire, burned down homes and hospitals, and kidnapped children. Three days before Walli takes her stand in space, a young boy to whom Sonia has grown quite attached loses what is left of his family, and eventually is kidnapped by the rebels himself and placed in a camp of truly deplorable conditions. As Sonia goes on a mission to rescue him, Walli is fighting to preserve her ship and her life--the only leverage she has to convince her government to intervene.

Ok, so this book is not what I expected and is low-key boring. I can live with that. However, there are some aspects of this book that felt truly unforgiveable to me. As others have pointed out, problematic areas were teased from the very beginning. As early as chapter two, we get statements like this:

"She was born of an American father and a Mexican mother, but the American part was hard to spot."

Hello, you cannot "spot" someone's nationality! There are people of color in America! Oh, but it continues:

"Sonia's hair was black and thick, and she kept it long, though for fieldwork she braided it and then tied it up to the crown of her head in a businesslike bun. She had the kind of mocha skin that darkened a shade if someone so much as took a flash picture of her; in the jungle sun, she was nearly the color of the tribespeople. Her eyes were a brown so dark that she sometimes had to squint in the mirror to make out the pupils. If there was any flicker of the north-of-the-border appearance that survived, it was a faint spangling of green, her father's eye color, in the brown of her own eyes."

Wow ok, paper bag test be damned, mixed kids are kids of color. I mean, wtf. Oh, but not quit as dark as the "tribespeople." Because obviously dark=savage. This is when I should have stopped reading. And yet, I continued.

I continued through chapters upon chapters of generic 2D "conflict" in the Amazon. No word really of what this conflict is about, just a President of Brazil with name that lends itself well to being meme-ified, who is obviously in the wrong because he is the President of, well, Brazil. We have "rebels" who are torching the rainforest just to get rid of the doctors whose "interference" they detest. We have indigenous people being rounded up into camps, where disease runs rampant and many are left for dead, but the word "genocide" does not appear once in this book. And we have a multi-page exposition on why obviously the US is the only country suitable to "help" in this situation (none of which actually justifies the white saviorism). It's gross.

Then at the end, we have this mixed-race, barely-a-trace-of-American doctor adopting this indigenous child and skirting every immigration law to bring him to America with her, but it's ok because "he's traumatized" and "they're bonded." Then we are subjected to a multi-paragraph explication of just how awful it is for "indigenous people activist groups" to be "culturally elitist" and suggest that the child would have been better off in "the jungle" than in White America with American Medicine and People Who Love Him. Even if one of those people is literally a convicted criminal currently incarcerated by the US military. Y'all, this is why the Indian Child Welfare Act still exists in the US. This shit, right here.

Do not recommend.

My appreciation to NetGalley and Dutton for the eARC in exchange for the review though.

This book was advertised as similar to The Martian which obviously immediately caught my eye. I'm a little annoyed though, as that comparison is not at all accurate. Does this take place partially in space? Yep. Is really about space though? No, not at all. I think a better comparison would be Tom Clancy, with a space component!

This story is about a brave astronaut who defies orders to come home, holding the ISS hostage as a bargaining piece for things happening on Earth. The actual story here is about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which the astronaut is trying to prevent by forcing the US Government to intervene in order to stop the destruction (which is being done by a power-hungry politician in Brazil).

This plot is fine, but it really isn't at all what I expected. I feel like the book has been heavily mis-marketed. I noticed other reviews had similar thoughts, so hopefully sci-fi and space fans don't get misled like us!

What really caused me to drop this to two stars in the end, though, was the writing. There were sentences that were so convoluted and confusing to read. I honestly laughed at some of them. Here's one:

"Joe Star was not kidding that Beckwith wasn't well trained to walk in space, which wasn't quite the same as saying the she wasn't at all trained-but close."

Just a poorly written story that was honestly boring and not at all like The Martian. I'd steer clear.

A very political book, but well-plotted. Although it held my interest, I expected more and was disappointed overall due to the lack of satisfaction with the main character's motivations for her actions..

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a little science fiction, but I had to check to see if the author was an astronaut. It’s also a bit climate fiction about the burning of the Amazon. And it also feels like it could happen tomorrow. Walli, an American astronaut on the ISS, stays behind after an accident damages the ISS and causes them to abandon the station. She is protesting the burning of the Amazon and hoping that the U.S. Senate and Congress will vote to intervene. Her niece is a doctor working with the indigenous people who call the Amazon their home. Walli has to deal with a promise that wasn’t really a promise and with the Russians shutting down their part of the ISS. And with an ammonia leak that threatens her and the future usefulness of the ISS. An interesting read about life in space and in jungle under threat.

When a headstrong and passionate astronaut defies orders and places herself and an entire International Space Station in peril, what could go possibly go wrong?

Everything it turns out.

As Walli Beckwith stands her ground in space in the pursuit of justice for the indigenous people of the burning Brazilian rainforest, we get the play-by-play of a crippled space vessel in desperate need of repair. In a race against the clock, Beckwith must rally her followers down on Earth and sway the "powers that be" in a last-ditch attempt to save one corner of the world from destruction and corruption.

Kluger spins a masterful, twisty, political, on-the-edge-of-your-seat tale that will have you cheering for the holdout and nibbling on those nails until the very last suspenseful page.

Fairly standard sci-fi book in my opinion. I was kind of confused at times, especially in the beginning, but for the most part I enjoyed this book.

The idea behind this book was interesting but the storytelling was incredibly disjointed and flowed poorly. Additionally, the author kept trying to describe characters of ethnic heritage in a way that was, at best, cringeworthy. The conversation between the majority of characters feels stitled which contributed to my inability to really invest in the success of any of these characters.

Interesting and pretty entertaining read!
Really enjoyed it and it was like a breath of fresh air after some of my current reads. Can't wait to see what else this author creates!

I was not expecting the way this book was. I was expecting a space story and got a political save the planet story. I did enjoy this book. The characters, though slow to appreciate, did grow on me. Give this book a try and just enjoy the ride.

This is an amazing book. It’s obvious Kluger is a space fanatic and knows a lot about the subject as well as how to tell a suspenseful story with space travel at the heart of it. Kluger wrote the Apollo 13 book the movie was based off of and is an editor at Time magazine. His practiced knowledge of possible relevant worldwide issues is obvious within this work.
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The plot line and characters are phenomenal and if we don’t have a movie of this one, probably starring Sandra Bullock, I would be surprised. I did find myself teary eyed twice so this one is likely to tug at your heartstrings. It was exactly the action packed book I needed. Don’t miss this one!

So I honestly considered DNF'ing this one in the beginning. I felt like the technical tangents were lost on me. It was just a big blah blah blah in the background. I didn't really love how it started.

But as the story began to unfold, I really fell in love with Walli and her story. While I'm far too cynical to believe that people in the real world would act as the people in the book did, I'm also hopeful enough to think they would.

The thing about this book is that you see some really dark parts of society. From cultural, political, economical. It's just a whole list of dark things happening in this book. On a global scale.

While I didn't end up loving the writing style, I did really enjoy the characters. I think the world could use a few more Walli's and Sonya's.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

cover 3; characters 5; plot 4; pace 3; writing 3; enjoyment 4; cry *

This one was different from what I expected! Not in a terrible way, just not in the way I thought it was going to go. I’m not one for political thrillers, so I had been hoping for more of the sci-fi thriller I had been promised from the synopsis. Still a good story, just not one I would probably revisit. If you enjoy genre bending fiction then check this one out!

Walli Beckworth is in a place few only dream of--an astronaut assigned to a post at the International Space Station. After an accident on board forces the crew to evacuate, Walli makes a hasty decision to stay. At the time, her colleagues are baffled. We quickly realize Walli’s decision was a bit more intentional. She’s determined to highlight a part of the world that most have seemed to forget, and the whole planet is watching it play out.

I was worried we were only going to get the perspective of Walli in the space station, but we get plenty of “on the ground” information and plot too, which definitely adds some strong layers to the story. I was equally surprised that the story is much more than science fiction. There are strong political tones and plot points that play out throughout the story as well.

It’s definitely not my typical genre, but it was a nice way to break up my tbr a bit! My husband also plans to read this one so we can talk about it together! Thanks to Dutton books and NetGalley for a digital review copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced copy! Here is my honest review. When I read the synopsis for this book, I didn’t really know what to expect going into it. I thought it might be a science fiction thriller. Had I known more specific details about this book, I probably wouldn’t have read it. But I did really enjoy my reading experience once the story got started.
We follow Walli Beckwith, an astronaut. An accident happens and the three astronauts that are on the space station are required to leave. But Walli refuses and stays behind. The reason? No one knows until a few days later. When Walli finally reveals that she stayed behind on the space station to protest and demand action from the United States, many countries are furious. This is where the story gets way more political than I anticipated. The heart of this story is about Walli pressuring the U.S. government to do the right thing and intervene where another country is committing extreme human right violations.
I liked Walli. I liked that she had the bravery and audacity to take the space station hostage in order to shed light on the atrocities happening in the Amazon. She takes unauthorized photos from the space station and uses her fame as an astronaut to bring awareness to the issue that’s being called the Consolidation. I think the parts with Walli alone on the space station could have been boring, but they weren’t. The author used them well to share backstory and other important details.
I was confused at Sonia’s point of view until I learned of her connection to Walli and all the pieces fell together. I think Sonia’s part of the story was just as important, if not more important, than Walli’s. Sonia’s on the ground in the Amazon, working as a doctor. We see the horrors happening in the forest through Sonia and I have to say, at times, her parts of the story were incredibly hard to read.
Overall, I think this was a great story. It was well written, interesting, detailed, and organized. I think it was a passionate story about people doing the ‘wrong’ thing for the right reasons. I loved the bravery and courage these women showed. I think it puts a hope and positivity on the American government that isn’t really deserved, but I thought it was great for escapism.

This book was a mixture of space and the environment. I found many of the details to be unbelievable from an astronaut perspective (I am not an astronaut, but I have a military background and have had the privilege to know many astronauts over the years).

In any case, the book was not what it purported to be based on the synopsis, and I quickly found myself losing interest. Although the writing itself was very good, the topic was just not something I wanted to continue reading. Thank you to NetGalley for an opportunity to be an advanced reviewer.