From the publisher: When evil forces are going unchecked on Earth, a principled astronaut makes a spilt-second decision to try to seek justice in the only place she knows how—the International Space Station.

The science in Holdout is good; Jeffrey Kluger is also the co-author, with astronaut Jim Lovell, of Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which was the basis of the Apollo 13 movie released in 1995, and nine other books. The author worked fictional versions of real space incidents into the plot. I really enjoyed the descriptions of life and work in space, and the relationship between the Russian and American astronauts. Although it’s a minor plot point, I also liked the main character’s concern for the mice that were in space with her.

I did not feel there was a lot of tension in this book. Although there were dangerous situations, I was never on the edge of my seat. Also, the plot device of a non-indigenous adult rescuing an orphaned indigenous child is a bit overdone. The scenes set in the ravaged Amazon rainforest were heart rending, especially knowing how true to life they are.

Holdout could make a good book discussion book. It contains themes about standing up for what’s right, greed and hypocrisy, how indigenous peoples are treated, the environment and the Amazon rainforest, and international cooperation.

Holdout is a pretty good book. It wants to be The Martian, but it’s not quite. Still, if you enjoyed The Martian you may enjoy Holdout. I read an advance reader copy of Holdout; it is scheduled to be published in August. The Galesburg Public Library will own it in print and as an ebook.

If you are a fan of realistic science fiction, you will probably enjoy this book. Set in the near present, it involves the International Space Station and the astronauts who work there. When a resupply ship arrives and does not dock correctly, the 3 astronauts aboard are forced to leave on their Soyuz spacecraft that is already docked at the station. As the 2 Russians and one American go to leave, the American, Walli Beckwith, an experienced naval pilot and astronaut chooses to stay behind. We are unsure at first why she would do this and her reasons are slowly revealed as the story continues.
One thing that the space station gets everyday is beautiful views of earth and during this time the Amazon is going up in smoke and Walli is drawn into the cause of saving this valuable rain forest from the deprivations of man. A movement by the strongman President of Brazil called The Consolidation is the cause of most of the Amazon fires: he is directing fires to be set to move out the native peoples living there and turn the rain forest into arable land that can be given to his cronies who are helping keep him in power.
Walli uses her immense bully pulpit of being able to see these fires in real time (and using social media to share pictures of it). We are also given an inside view of the people on the ground through the eyes of her niece (and basically adopted daughter) who is a recent medical school graduate working with a group of volunteer physicians helping the displaced native people. It's an interesting story and the description of life on the space station and the mission control people in the U.S. and Russia is very appealing as well.

Part science fiction, part political/environmental book, this story will appeal to a wide range of readers.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and I enjoyed it very much. I would recommend this book to fans of Andy Weir and I look forward to more from this author.

I reviewed this on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3915806399?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This was an excellent space thriller. Belka is an astronaut on the Space Station when a rogue cargo delivery damages one of the modules in a failed docking event and the cabins depressurize. Her Two Russian companions are injured and Moscow orders all Three astronauts to enter the Soyuz spacecraft and return to earth. Belka refuses to go and in affect hijacks the space station. The other two astronauts return to earth and the hospital. Belka has her reasons for staying on board and soon fires up a controversy about the events she can see from space happening in the Amazon. This causes an especially thrilling situation as it plays out in Space and on earth.This was a thoroughly enjoyable read!

An astronaut risks her career in an act of protest to save the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people..
This book really should have been amazing, but, honestly I found it really boring and muddled. The main character is not really given a personality beyond 'stubborn mother figure', and the other characters are all less characterized than her. She spends the first third of the book mostly thinking about how she admires all the male authority figures around her, telling us the backstories of side characters, and some characters who are never mentioned again after receiving their backstory.
I really couldn't find a logic to her actions, or a real statement to be found in the book. The United States is going to intervene with a tyrannical government that is forcing native people off their lands, rounding up, and assimilating them? Via military intervention? Seems both very unlikely, and a very bad idea.

An accident onboard the International Space Station sparks an international uproar in this political thriller. Lt. Commander Walli Beckwith decides to stay aboard the International Space Station to bring the world’s attention and action to a terrible man-made catastrophe, rather than return to Earth with her fellow crew members. This defection will not only end her career as a Navy Officer, but if Russian officials have their way, she will spend time in prison.

While in the Amazon, Sonia, an intern working for Health on Wings, finds herself in dangerous territory while trying to save the indigenous children being displaced by the chaos ensuing in the Amazon jungle. Both women choose to fight in the only way they know how to bring to light the horrific injustice being done, however, they find that not only have they put themselves in danger, they are also fighting for their very lives.

Holdout is a fast-paced political thriller/drama that begins with a bang. I found myself extremely fascinated about the Russian space program and their procedures. Usually in space dramas, we are only introduced to the American procedures, so this was a treat. We are also introduced to an amazing cast of characters, including Vasily Zhirov and Yulian Levedev, Walli’s heroic Russian crew members. I found myself really connecting to Sonia and her plight. She is strong and competent, but her youth and inexperience does cause her to react recklessly at times. However, she is a character you can’t help rooting for. I did find it a little harder to connect to Walli. I felt her character was a bit unrealistic, but I loved her interactions with Zhirov and Jasper.

Holdout is a heck of a ride with a very satisfying conclusion.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. Listen to the full review at: https://bookclubbed.buzzsprout.com/

Space, despite what we tend to assume, is quite boring. This has been proven by the endless movies and novels set in the next great frontier. You float around a spaceship (which all look the same), the missions outside are tense but hard to convey (because the astronauts are slowly bobbing up and down in a black void), and the themes are predictable (isolation, fear of the unknown, running out of resources, etc).

This is a perfectly competent book, one that your dad will read and then forget the name of by next week when you ask him on the phone what he’s been up to. Every character is 2-dimensional, if they are lucky enough to receive a second dimension.

The plot, unfortunately, is not compelling. We see a deux ex machina right off the bat, as our MC uses a rare space collision to launch a spontaneous protest against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Holdout contains one of the worst endings of all time, hinging on the US government voting to do the “right” thing, which is hilarious, casting bought-and-paid members of Congress as reasonable representatives of the peoples’ whims. Even worse, the emotional leverage our MC generates is used to spur action through…wait for it… US military invention. When has US military invention gone well? This is our strategy? Are we going to nuke the amazon to save it?

This is all before we acknowledge how offensive and belittling it is to assume we can only appeal to the United States, instead of, you know, the people of Brazil, which happens to be the country affected. Yeah, I’m sure any South American country would welcome an imperial colonizer to control and distribute their land as they saw fit. Sounds rational.

"Holdout" is a political and space thriller that reminds me of a book I haven't even thought of in decades, "Advise and Consent," by Allen Drury.

At times it moves at a stately pace, but by the dazzling end, you can fire up the triumphant music in your head and enjoy the outcome.

Lt. Commander Walli Beckwith is on a Space Station mission with two Russian crew, and they work together very well. The commander, Vasily, cares deeply about Yuli, the fix-it genius, and Walli, whose specialty is medical research on the American section of the station. When a Progress resupply rocket has control issues and crashes into the station, the resulting decompression, though moderate, causes inner ear damage to all three of them. The station itself is in peril of further damage, and the crew is ordered to evacuate in a rocket that's kept on standby at all times for just such a mission.

Yuli's injuries are more severe, and he is in desperate need of evacuation. Vasily orders an evac, but at the last instant, Walli refuses to enter the ship and escape the foundering station. She's got something else that she must take care of. The two Russians depart as she stays to do her best at stabilizing the station so that she can complete her task.

The space station offers a splendid view of things on Earth, and she's seen activity in the Amazon basin, construction and military using fire to clear unauthorized regions and manipulate the native population. The Brazilian president has plans to develop the Amazon for profit, shunting the people aside so that they won't interfere with him. Walli uses the space station as a bully pulpit to draw attention to the plight of the Amazon, demanding that the United States take action on this matter.

Using social media, she gains a following and begins to share the tragedy that is unfolding. A family member is in the Amazon basin as medical staff, and feeds more background information to her. Meanwhile she is called a pirate and hijacker worldwide for remaining on the station - what is her intent?

This book shows how you can manipulate politicians, the general public, and world governments. Is that skill going to be sufficient?

I really enjoyed the space parts of "Holdout," and the operational details of Roscosmos, the Russian equivalent of NASA. The author has direct experience of these details, as he has been a print reporter for many years and covered many of the incidents that inspired this book and the things that take place. I especially appreciated the acknowledgements, which share these details. I now understand that Kazakh is a very cold place, which I sort of knew, and that I must reach a certain place before the bomb-sniffing dog takes his walk if I don't want to spend an interminable time waiting, shivering, miserable. "Holdout" is worth reading for "behind the scenes" stories like this.

Jeffrey Kluger created astronaut and cosmonaut characters that I love and care about, and captures perfectly the colorful Russian traditions that are both rooted in their culture and in a quasi-military operational system.

Through it all, a crew is a crew, and Vasily and Yuli step up to help in a true "All for one and one for all" spirit, Russian space musketeers defending their American comrade.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC! I thought the writing felt real and genuine, but not too overly scientific or hard to follow. The book overall brought light to some serious things that are truly occurring in the rainforest and much like other things will be ignored until it's likely too late. The book is fiction in the sense that I don’t know how realistic it is to believe that anyone would take a stand on the international space station and actually get someone to listen, but we also live in a world that celebrates and idolizes unlikely people. Overall, I enjoyed the book and felt satisfied with how the book read and wrapped up all of the people’s lives for me at the end.

Author Jeffrey Kluger is clearly adept at writing about NASA space procedure and science and making it understandable for the average reader. The book itself is very well-written and his writing style is clear but to the point of being antiseptic. Perhaps that works for hard science/space fans, but it didn't totally resonate with me. There's plenty of great written action and a strong overarching message, plus he does a great job at jumping between the two major storylines. Overall, it's a fun read but I did have some problems with the characters that prevented it from being a home-run for me.

While Holdout offers two female heroines, I found myself not really connecting with either of them. The characters developed too slowly for me (pacing overall was slow) and made it a bit difficult to really care about their fates. My first emotional connection to Walli didn't happen until 3/4 of the way through the book when she contracts e-coli. I never got there at all with the supporting lead of Sonia. Towards the end, it felt a bit like checking boxes: smart female leads, and environmental cause, a dash of action and put it all in space. I also never totally bought Walli's motivation for remaining in the Space Station. I found it hard to believe that a career military officer would have ever defied orders and a structure she believes in, created an international incident (a problem in itself for the greater good), and that she would have done it as a lone wolf.

Holdout it a good, well-written book, and I think fans of the genre will enjoy it but it just fell a little short on characters for me.

This was a fun and interesting book that combines the work of doctors in the Amazon region and an astronaut on the space station. The two stories are interwoven and the author does a good job of moving both plots simultaneously. The author’s knowledge of NASA is evident. There is exciting conflict and plenty of action. This book makes a powerful statement about the destruction of the Amazon and what one astronaut does to focus the world’s attention on the destruction.