This novel alternates perspectives between three adult siblings, Kass, Evie, and Jakob. 15 years before the book began, Jakob and their dad disappeared - their dad reappeared a few days later saying they’d been kidnapped by aliens, but Jakob never reappeared. But now 15 years later, Jakob has come back from outer space - or is that where he really was? Evie wants to believe so because she has basically dedicated her life to a group dedicated to proving alien life but sensible Kass would never believe it - meanwhile Jakob needs to get back to outer space.

This book definitely was more family drama and even a bit of suspense than it was science fiction, which was a little disappointing to me as I was definitely expecting it to tilt more the other way. I have read all of Mike Chen’s previous books, the first two of which I loved and the third which was just ok for me. I will probably still give his next book a try though.

3.5 stars

Jakob, Kass, Evie, and their father Arnold went camping fifteen years ago, and their lives changed forever. There was an unusual electrical storm, and two days later, only their father is found. Arnold and Jakob disappeared together, so where is Jakob? Arnold tells everyone that they were abducted by aliens, who kept Jakob and sent him back.
The story opens with Jakob on a mission to save the universe when he runs into trouble. His only option, going back to earth and hopefully finding what he needs to contact his ship. Evie has been searching for him since he vanished, while Kass believes he just took off. Their father is now deceased, and their mother is suffering from dementia. These two sisters’ lives are galaxies apart.
When Jakob reappears with his rather fantastic tale, half of me believed he was telling the truth and the other half was sure he was delusional. The only thing that tipped the scales in his favor, was his father's story. His father came back with an object the family called “It”. Could this be the one thing that will assist Jakob or is it just a useless piece of junk?
You might think this is a science fiction story, and it certainly has its basis in that genre. But the real story is what happens to family members left behind when someone is just gone. Evie and Kass are strangers, but once Jakob returns, old resentments become the main focus of the story. Can they trust him, and more importantly can their family heal after so many years of secrets and bad decisions? I was glued to my Kindle trying to guess the truth and rooting for this family to somehow get a second chance.

So you need to know upfront, this story is focused way more on the family unit and the individuals in it, and way less on the extraterrestrials. Which isn't a bad thing! But if you came for aliens, this isn't it.

What I Loved:

The journey of the characters and the family was spectacular, and what I have come to expect from Mike Chen. It's incredibly heartfelt, told from the points of view of three adult siblings trying to pick of the pieces of their broken family. Kass has become the Responsible One™, staying at the homestead, taking care of their ailing mother. She's bitter, and I understood why. Mom has some form of early dementia, and it's rather heartbreaking. Kass has pretty much no one to turn to, save a delightful nurse and a kind ex-husband. Sure, she's chosen to take the weight on her shoulders in its entirety (flat out not telling her sister Evie about their mom's diagnosis), but she has her reasons.

Evie is across the country, trying to find herself, her purpose. She's teamed up with some folks who are hardcore UFO believers, because she is sure that Jakob was taken by some form of extraterrestrial being. Kass thinks Evie has a few screws loose.

When Jakob wakes up in a dumpster back on Earth, he has to figure out how to reconcile his decades-long absence with his family, all while tracking down the clues to help stave off an intergalactic war. Problem is, Kass is fairly certain that he was just being a jerk, wandering around Europe or something, ignoring the family while dad died and mom slowly loses her faculties. Frankly, Kass is so convinced that Jakob was uselessly trolling around the planet, that she convinced me at various points.

The story mainly focuses on the characters' exploration of both their relationships with each other and themselves. Where do they fit in their family? Who are they at their own core? It's really very character driven, and they're so well developed that it definitely works on that front.

What I Wanted a Bit More Of:

I mean, the aliens? No, but maybe just a little more oomph? I don't mind a quiet story, but there were times that perhaps this was a bit too quiet? It's beautiful, make no mistake. But the story's bread and butter lies in its characters.

Bottom Line: A lovely novel about family and finding oneself, this will appeal to fans of character driven stories with a little sci-fi for good measure.

The author, Mike Chen, has been a name that I keep hearing about recently. I haven’t had a chance to read any of his previous books but I took the opportunity to read his newest book first. The pacing of this story was smooth. I enjoyed most of the characters and I was mostly intrigued by the story. There were parts of the story that lagged for me but overall, this book was a solid read

Content warning: dead parent (father), dementia, PTSD

One of my favorite subgenres of science fiction and fantasy comes in the form of “what happens to the main characters when they return from their adventure?” This book is split into three POVs: one sister, Kass, who kept herself firmly rooted on Earth, her twin, Jakob, who disappeared in a first contact episode fifteen years prior, and their younger sister, Evie, who wants to find her brother but also proof of extra-terrestrials. Jakob does return one day, and it’s a race to complete a space military mission while trying to tie knots longed frayed by hurts gone unmended.

A compelling story about siblings trying to mend rifts that go beyond the pedestrian and tear into space and time amid a veritable Easter basket of Assassin’s Creed references.

There are so many layers to the heartbreak in this novel. The unresolved emotions of their father’s previous disappearance and passing several years later leaves echoes. There are mistakes that occur in that fifteen year time period. There is the grief that comes from losing a parent to dementia, even though physically they are right there. There is the distance that comes with being so committed to a project, you forget everything else. But the narrative delivers this with such grace and nuance, there definitely is an air of healing amid the despair.

If you’re worried it’s only family struggle, don’t worry, the alien stuff is very cool. While we get glimpses of Jakob’s space military reality, it’s clear that much work was done to give it a three-dimensional shape. There’s an implication of language, intergalactic conflict, and neat future-tech that’s magic-adjacent.

But the focus remains with the people involved, not so much the epic scale of it all. The hope of things getting better resonates at the end, despite the journey to get there. Much like in Chen’s first book where I got deeply upset about fried chicken (Here and Now and Then), this one made me incredibly emo about pizza.

For a book that references light years in the title and begins on an alien spaceship somewhere in outer space, the story actually has very little to do with aliens themselves. This book is about family, relationships, expectations, love, and disappointments. Not that aliens may not have those, but this is a book very much about humans - more family drama than sci fi, but a heartwarming drama to follow.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2022/01/light-years-from-home.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher’s blog tour.

Every unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but there are few families that are unhappy because one of the adult children has been abducted by aliens and recruited to fight in an intergalactic war.

Not that the Shao family was exactly happy BEFORE Jakob Shao joined the intergalactic fleet – but back then they were unhappy in ways that would be a bit more familiar. Now, not so much.

Light Years from Home isn’t quite the story we’re expecting from the blurb, because it’s not really about Jakob or his alien abduction at all. Not that he’s not part of it, but the story isn’t about him.

The story is about collateral damage, specifically the collateral damage of the Jakob-shaped hole in the Shao family. A hole that has only opened wider in the 15 years since Jakob left his family and his planet behind.

He comes back to Earth believing that nothing will have changed in his absence, and that it won’t matter if he leaves again. After all, he has a mission to complete and a universe to save. Healing the hole in his family’s heart is way above the level of feckless incompetence he left behind.

But Jakob Shao isn’t that man any longer. Not that his family will EVER let him forget it. Or them.

Escape Rating A: Light Years from Home is one of those stories that’s much greater than the sum of its parts. Parts that initially seem so far apart that they might as well be from different planets – if not galaxies.

This story is also very much what my book group has been calling “sad fluff”. Although this is sad fluff with spaceships.

By sad fluff I mean that this story is, in spite of the science fictional trappings, relationship fiction. It’s not about Jakob and the epic space battles. We believe they exist, but they’re not actually the point of the story. The point of the story is Jakob’s relationship with his family, and their relationships with each other.

This could be a story about any family dealing with the lack of closure wrapped about the disappearance of a family member. They all know Jakob left them behind. Their late father died believing Jakob had been abducted by aliens, but that’s a pretty far-fetched conclusion for the rest of the family. Except for Jakob’s younger sister Evie, who has made a career of investigating UFO sightings and the possibilities of extraterrestrial contact with Earth.

It’s much easier for Kass and their mother to believe that Jakob – charming, irresponsible, feckless Jakob – just wanted to get away from his parents’ endless expectations that he “live up to his potential” and “not waste his education,” etc., etc., etc. He has a history of that kind of behavior – he’s just been gone a whole lot longer this time.

And there are plenty of times in the story when Kass has nearly everyone convinced that Jakob has returned because he’s having a psychotic break. She nearly convinces both their younger sister Evie – who does believe in UFOs and alien abductions – AND THE READER! It’s only when Evie finds actual proof that Kass begins to believe that the thing that tore her family apart is real – and that she can’t blame Jakob for everything. That she has to start looking inside herself for answers.

As I was reading Light Years from Home, in spite of pretty much ALL the names of all the characters coming from the Assassin’s Creed videogame series, the things this story actually reminded me of came from other places.

While Jakob’s intergalactic experiences are mostly off stage, the setup reminded me more than a bit of The Last Starfighter – without that slam bang ending because Jakob’s story doesn’t get that kind of unabashed happy ending – nor should it.

Jakob’s personality and some of his story had echoes in Fergus Ferguson, the protagonist of The Finder Chronicles. If you’re wishing that Light Years from Home focused more on Jakob’s travels, try Finder.

But the thing this made me think of the most was Elton John’s song Rocket Man. Because this reads like it’s that song told from the point of view of the people that the Rocket Man has left behind back home.

If that’s not enough of a gut punch, the conclusion of Light Years from Home reached back into the ending of one of SF’s classic stories, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. And it’s every bit as much of a heartbreaker in Light Years from Home as it was back then.

Light Years From Home is about a family that has been fractured since the disappearance of Jakob. With his reappearance, the past comes rushing back, and so do all the negative emotions and thoughts tied up with him. But his reappearance, no matter how desperate he is to get back to where he came from, offers hope to his family, and I really loved how this is more a story of family than it is about an intergalactic war. There’s a large psychology piece to this story that I really loved, and I enjoyed how it twisted everything in the middle so I really had no idea where the story was going. There are high stakes and enemies coming after them, but, through it all, Light Years From Home manages to be a beautiful story of family and understanding oneself.

Extended Thoughts
The Shao family hasn’t been the same since Jakob vanished with his father 15 years ago, and only his dad returned. Left to pick up the pieces, sisters Kassie, who is also Jakob’s twin sister, and Evie, their younger sister, set themselves on different tracks. With their father’s obsession over finding Jakob and trying to figure out how to use a piece of alien technology, nothing is ever quite the same and an already fractured family threatens to break further.

Fifteen years later, Kassie is a psychologist living with her mother who is slowly descending deeper into dementia. Evie is a vet tech on the other side of the country working with a group called the Reds who investigates anything alien-related. When data suggests Jakob might be back, Evie decides to travel back home, unprepared and not at all ready for the family reunion about to happen that could break them forever or finally heal them.

The thing I love most about Mike Chen’s books is just how much humanness and heart is in them. Light Years From Home is no exception and really focused on family. While I wasn’t really into the fact that this one has aliens and alien abduction, I found it wasn’t really focused on that as much as I expected. This novel is almost completely set on Earth and mostly swirls around one family and how alien abduction impacted them. It’s beautiful and heartfelt with a lot of pain under the surface, and the ending, while I wanted just a little more, was absolutely perfect and fitting for the family.

Light Years From Home focuses on the Shao family: Mom and Dad (Sofia and Arnold), Kassie, Jakob, and Evie. There are also some other fun characters, like Evie’s friend Layla from the Reds who tells some punny science jokes and Mom’s caretaker Lucy. But it really focuses on the Shao family and how Jakob’s sudden disappearance impacted them for 15 years. It was great to see how they were split between believing the best and the worst of Jakob and how it splintered them. Their family was fractured and seriously hurting and even I had my doubts as to whether or not they could pull together and do something about Jakob’s reappearance and what it means for an intergalactic war they know nothing of.

Most of Light Years From Home is told by Kassie and Evie. As Jakob’s sisters, they have vastly different views and memories of him. I really liked how they knocked heads over it and how it further rent the family in half. But they’re deeper than that. Both have their own underlying issues that have built up over the years as their brother’s disappearance took their toll on them, and it was fun to see it play out. The sisters are very different from each other, practically opposites, but family is family. I loved how achingly awkward and difficult their reunion was and there were so many steps backwards and forwards, but they really did feel like real sisters to me. I liked that Kassie, as the oldest, suddenly took responsibility and just shouldered everything without any discussion and I liked that Evie held such hope and optimism. Watching them dance around each other was wonderful and just felt so full of heart that they couldn’t be anything but family that still loves each other.

Jakob’s story wasn’t as full as I had hoped or expected, but, considering I’m not a fan of aliens and his story line is the one that involves aliens, I did end up enjoying it. I liked that the reader gets to know him from before his disappearance through his sisters, and then the reader is put into his perspective and suddenly things look a little different and there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye. I liked him, but was also kind of frustrated with him and the things he did even if they did make sense. His is also the perspective I wanted more from, but I think much more might have watered down the story too much, taking away from the story of the sisters and one family trying to mend itself.

But my favorite part was the mental health piece. Since my own background is in psychology, I really liked that Kassie is a psychologist and her work came into play several times throughout the story. It clouded some of what she did and sometimes I wished she could just calm down, but she always felt like she was an inch away from just blowing up for most of the book, which was fun and had me keeping a wary eye on her. Anyways, I really liked that it came in handy and played well into the family dynamics. It made the whole middle part both really wonderful and kind of a let down. But I loved how it made me question everything from the characters to the story. I also really liked the portrayal of dementia. It’s confusing and disorienting and so tough and I felt Light Years From Home really captured it well. I also liked that the way it was handled at the end wasn’t jarring, but made sense and really added something lovely to the family.

The story itself is about the intergalactic war Jakob is involved in and his overwhelming need to just get back and the impact his disappearance had on his family. Every step of the way, I felt Jakob’s need, but I also felt those strong, but strained family bonds. While Jakob’s story really drove the plot and kept it moving, Light Years From Home is really about the family. I loved how broken it was, how strained their relationships were, and how, despite that, the story was able to reach the kind of beautiful and soft ending I’ve come to expect from Chen’s novels. It’s a beautiful story of family.

Light Years From Home certainly had it’s slow and not quite as interesting parts, but the raw human emotions, the hope, the despair, really kept me hooked. It offers a story of family wrapped up in alien abduction, intergalactic wars, and a desperate father. I loved almost everything about it, but I really loved how heartfelt and human Chen’s novels are, and I especially loved the focus on family instead of the aliens.

Thank you to Justine Sha at MIRA for a review copy . All opinions expressed are my own.

The covers of Mike Chen’s books have haunted my Goodreads feed and the genre’s “most anticipated” lists for years. The synopses beckon like a faint siren’s call, but I never found the time to pick one up and dive in. Well, this year I decided to break out of the vicious cycle, and by god look at that cover. Light Years From Home is a heartfelt tale about a family broken by both time and distance that vividly captures familial tensions and the work needed to release them.

Jakob Shao went missing, leaving his family behind on an intervention disguised as a camping trip. His father came back holding a strange polished rock, convinced it was a piece of alien technology. Jakob, in his words, had been abducted by aliens. Kass, Jakob’s twin sister, did not buy it, and cleaned up her own slacking ways to carry the weight of the family. Evie, however, became involved in her father’s quest to find the truth. Fifteen years later, Evie gets some information from her skywatching friends suggesting Jakob is back on Earth. She returns home to California in search of her missing brother. Kass, while taking care of their mother with dementia, just can’t believe Evie has chosen now to interrupt her steady, if isolated life after years of no contact. Meanwhile, Jakob needs to find a missing piece of alien technology that will allow him to even the odds against the empire that threatens the galaxy, if only his two sisters would believe him.

While I could say a number of positive things about Chen’s writing, his strength lies in his ability to convey the thoughts and feelings of his characters. Whether they are processing new information or doubling down on existing preconceptions, the Shao family feel like individuals who don’t know how to handle the world around them. Each character feels deeply entrenched in who they are, and any sort of disturbance to their worldview shakes the ground until they stamp it their feet back until the earth stops shaking. While the characters all feel similar in that they lash outwards, it takes different forms. Kass, the family psychologist, hides behind her intimate knowledge of emotions and coping mechanisms to secure her own truth. Evie, after years of estrangement from her entire family, feels she has all the answers because everything she has done is supported by “science” or “data.” And Jakob, well, he’s caught between the heroic person he’s become and the slacker his family still sees him as, unable to reconcile the distance and own up to the trauma he caused them.

All of this is written in an unreliable narration style from each of their perspectives, making the reader guess at the actual truth of the situation. There were moments where I felt for each of them, that sense of “why can’t they just accept that this is the way it is now?” frustration that plagues any sort of family squabble. And then Chen would switch characters and point out the inconsistencies as seen by Evie, Kass or Jakob. Chen performed a wonderful and emotional juggling act, never giving full credence to a specific character unless it felt they were right in that moment. No one really ever had the upper hand, each member of the Shao family had work to do, sins to reconcile amongst each other and within themselves. It made each fissure feel deeper and more unmanageable as the frenetic pace of the story slammed against this small family.

While Jakob’s quest felt immediate and unavoidable, it never fully occupied the center stage. Sure it did inside his own head, but Chen managed to make it feel urgent and in need of being solved, without overshadowing the other characters. This is amplified by the constant doubt that Jakob may not actually be who he says he is, and Chen really knows how to play with ambiguity. Kass, while she is determined to cut him down and put him in the same box he was in fifteen years ago, was really good at poking holes in his story. Unfortunately, this left Evie in some tough spots, having to choose between the two sides, one of which had the backing of the FBI. All that’s to say, this genre mashup focuses more on the family dynamics than its science fiction bonafides, and I, for one, was glad for it.

Light Years from Home is a solid book about how one’s actions, conscious or not, ripple through one’s family. One can be a galactic hero, but still have fucked up the lives of one’s siblings and parents through being neglectful and inconsiderate. One can study the emotional lives of others, while building an emotional fortress your closest have to scale in order to reach you. One can intimately pin point every detail and know the precise data points that led to their conclusions while missing the fact that their family is not a graph. If you want an empathetic and heartrending tale of how a family relearns how to be a family, Chen’s latest is for you.

Rating: Light Years from Home 8.0/10
-Alex

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.

Light Years from Home by Mike Chen is a standalone science fiction fantasy mixed with family drama. The story in Light Years from Home is one that is told from multiple points of view and some flashes back to what happened to the characters in the past.

Fifteen years ago siblings Kass, Evie and Jakob had been camping with their father when the girls had separated from Jakob and their dad. Something happened that night and Kass and Evie couldn’t find their brother or father triggering a huge search. A few days later their father was found claiming to have been abducted by aliens.

Needless to say the Shao family struggled after that camping trip with Jakob never found and their father searching for any proof of aliens and where his son had gone until he died. Kass and Evie coped in very different way with Kass caring for their mother while Evie went off to work with a group studying alien life herself. When Evie gets a sign that something is happening near home Kass is not happy to have her back but suddenly Jakob has also returned to their lives different that he had been.

Light Years from Home by Mike Chen was different than I expected it to be with the family’s issue being more in the forefront that the science fiction side but I still enjoyed the book despite the lack of sci-fi I expected. All of the characters were so different and really stood out as the point of view changed between them and I began to like them for who they were. For me in a way the story was even more compelling to see how the alien side of the story would play into the family dynamics as the siblings came back together and I really enjoyed this one as it felt like a unique crossover of genres.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I loved this story and I loved it because it's a family story with sci-fi elements. It's a family story that analyzes how a family can be torn by the disappearance of a member and how each of those remaining will react.
Kass, Jacob, and Evie are the siblings at the center of the story. Kass and Evie are still suffering from the aftermath of Jacob's disappearance, Jacobs is somewhere in the Universe fighting an intergalactic war till something happens and he comes home (to the Earth).
Nothing will be the same, a lot will happen and may the old wound will be healed or the Earth will be destroyed.
I wasn't a fan of Kass or Evie at the beginning of the book: they seemed a bit obsessive and lost in their world, Jacob seemed easier to like till you realize he left his family behind without even say goodbye.
There's a lot of character development and the arc of each character will improve and change them.
I liked the mix of the two genres and I found it well done. The plot is fast paced and I was engrossed in this riveting and entertaining story.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to MIRA and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

Space Opera Scifi For The Women's Fiction Crowd. This is one of those books where you go into it expecting a lot of scifi... something. Drama, action, maybe comedy, whatever. Instead you get scifi as setup for more women's fiction type family drama. Which is actually an interesting spin, but which will leave both crowds a bit perplexed. Overall though, Chen actually serves both crowds quite well, with enough of an off-screen hint of a backstory that he could come back to this world and give it the full-on Richard Phillips' Rho Agenda-style trilogy of trilogies exploring just the stuff he left *off* the page in this book - and yet what he *does* put on the page is truly solid women's fiction where brother and father's disappearances set in motion chains of events that mother nor either daughter could have ever dreamed of. Most of the actual tale here is more about the two sisters and how their lives have changed since that moment 15 years ago - and how they can move forward. The climax, with the FBI hot on the siblings' tails as they race toward brother's ultimate redemption, is as taught as anything in scifi and is reminiscent of both X-Files (the author's stated inspiration) and even ET: The Extra Terrestrial. Truly an excellent tale strongly told, and very much recommended.

Fifteen years ago, the Shao family was broken apart. Evie and Kass' father and brother vanished, and when their father was found days later, he said they were abducted by aliens. Jakob remained missing. Kass became the rock of the family while Evie pursued alien conspiracy theories to look for Jakob. The two effectively don't speak for fifteen years, until Evie's UFO network finds Jakob. He talks about an intergalactic war, and the FBI is after Jakob. The sisters will have to fix their relationship to help Jakob.

They're a dysfunctional family at the start, poor communication, dementia for their mother, and Jakob opens the book with his escape to Earth via transporter. Grief affects the family in all kinds of ways, compounded by fifteen years of silence and emotional distance. They all have different goals, though ultimately they're all about family. Kass wants to protect and care for their mother, Evie thinks finding Jakob will save their fractured family, and Jakob wants to protect the found family he made in space as well as his family on Earth.

The twist at the halfway point was stunning, and I hadn't seen it coming at all given how the first half had proceeded. It keeps twisting from there, and it's difficult to tell what is the truth and what is a delusion. As the sisters bicker with each other and Jakob, we see how much they still mean to each other, and how the love of their parents remains. They all want to save family, it's that they go about it in different ways. All three are stubborn, and becoming a family again takes work. I didn't expect the end of the novel, but it fits perfectly and I loved it.

Thank you to the author (Mike Chen) and publisher (Mira Books) for an advance reading copy of Light Years From Home. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions. Light Years From Home releases January 25, 2022. This review is now posted at the blog, FanFiAddict under the following link: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-light-years-from-home-by-mike-chen-2/

It’s best to go into this knowing what sort of story you’re about to read. I didn’t have any particular expectations besides knowing this was science fiction. Although this is sci-fi, it’s very soft and subtle with an intimate glimpse into the life of one family over the course of several days. There aren’t any grand, epic alien space battles written on page. An intergalactic war is occurring on the periphery but the focus is on the real world aftermath following a young man’s disappearance. Can I just say how much I love this idea? I think many authors may have ran in a different direction with this idea but I’m so glad Chen stayed true to his original vision once it had all the parts.

The novel begins with Jakob, who has found himself in a rather unfortunate hostage situation aboard an enemy spacecraft. Read a little further and you learn that Jakob is an important asset in this intergalactic war, for the good guys. Now, this is all happening 15 years post alien abduction so I’m instantly hooked.

We begin in the middle and we end in similar fashion. I love what Chen did here. We’re thrown right into the middle of things, and are presented with a deep character examination of family trauma. Told through three alternating POVs, we follow the Shao siblings; twins Jakob and Kassie, and Evie, as we learn how things have changed since Jakob’s disappearance 15 years prior. Chen did an amazing job capturing the dynamics between these three siblings and how they each dealt with their conflicts, hopes and dreams, griefs and losses. Now, there is some character growth from beginning to end but it is limited and that makes total sense for this story. It would’ve been a bit unrealistic, in the span of a few days, to heal, forgive, and mend things that have been in place for over a decade. Chen offers us a small glimpse into the Shao family and it’s believable, honest, and true to character. As I said before, we are deep within their story, their middle. There is still work to be done.

“Everything whirled around us, but we stayed the same.”

Chen’s writing is easy to read and paced well. I found myself flying through the chapters. There was one subplot that didn’t exactly hit the mark for me because it felt a bit fragile in its execution but your mileage may vary. I would’ve liked to see something else done to add action and energy to the plot. Light Years does touch on some really interesting alien technology, with it playing a key role to the plot. There is also some fantastic alien descriptions, although limited. There are content warnings for dementia, substance abuse, and a drowning briefly mentioned.

Light Years From Home is first and foremost a beautifully crafted family drama set within a world where aliens do exist and there is an intergalactic war happening in the vast reaches of space. This is for everyone wondering what happens to those we leave behind, especially those who are picking up the pieces. Chen shows us that hope, healing, and forgiveness is a whole process, and there is no singular path or timetable for when it happens.

Light Years from Home is a SF family story. A book that will wring tears from your eyes, laughter from your heart, and carve itself into your soul. It's full of action, family dynamics, and a story about siblings. About the things we think we know about the ones we love. About the lies we tell the ones we love and the lies we tell ourselves. These relationships with some of our closest people on the planet, and the distance in between.

The family drama and exploration in Light Years from Home is epic and poignant. There were moments I was close to tears and others with tears streaming down my face. How people can come into our lives, disappear, and appear in front of our eyes. Thematically, Light Years from Home explores belief and perception. How we are forced to confront not only what we know about the world, but about the ones we love and ourselves.

What really happened the night 15 years ago when Jakob disappeared? His twin Kassie has spent that time taking care of their mother, who is in the throes of dementia, while his other sister Evie is absolutely convinced he was abducted by aliens. Then he returns and things become even more unclear. Is he a terrorist as the FBI believes or is he back at the behest of the aliens for positive reasons? While this has a sci-fi tilt to it, it's very much a novel about families. These siblings- all very different- must find their ways back to each other from the estrangement caused by Jakob's departure. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's a thought provoking read with a good heart.

I have a complicated relationship with Mike Chen, and I'm happy to admit that. The first book I read by Chen, Here and Now and Then , felt very middle of the road and I had no real interest in reading more, but We Could Be Heroes was one of my favorite books of 2021. I was hoping that this book- of families and mysteries and possible aliens- was going to fall firmly into the latter category. But instead it felt like the same exact story of the first book, turned on its head and at a slight angle.

This book does still have the interesting family dynamics I was hoping for. Evie and Kass in particular are compelling, and seeing how they grew into who they are and apart from each other was really interesting to watch. I loved the reunion of the siblings, and the strangeness of being involved in each other's lives and problems after all that distance.

This book also manages to be more or less "feel good" without falling into the category of fluff. This book has substance, but it doesn't leave any heaviness or bittersweetness lingering behind when it leaves. The unfortunate part of that is that it doesn't leave much of anything behind. But, that is generally the give and take.

However, I wanted more mystery and tension. Knowing from the start that Jakob was actually taken by aliens isn't what I was expecting or, honestly, the story I wanted, and it slackened the tension so much that I had to really work to care for a good portion.
And the stakes that we do get feel, mostly too high and too low. The "end of the world" stakes are so high that you can't get a handle on them, and so it's hard to get genuinely invested. And the low, domestic stakes never really got deep enough to carry a story on its own. The imbalance really made it hard to get my emotional hooks in.

Somehow this book felt wooden- more fabricated than organic. The details of context are so chiseled in it makes everything feel less flexible, and more like a facade to tell a story against. It just didn't feel like there was any genuine build up, and reminded me more of a play.

This book as a unique feeling concept, but I didn't love the direction it was taken.

This is a great combo of family drama and science fiction. The slacker brother disappeared for 10 years but it’s because… he was abducted by aliens! And now he’s back but only for a minute cause he has to save the planet! But somehow I was more stressed out by the family dynamic than the prospect of the universe being destroyed, which I think speaks to the conflict Chen creates. I personally thought this would be a little heavier on the sci fi elements, but it wasn’t, which is fine. Just a heads up if you go in expecting space opera. It’s interesting and works off of a great premise.

‘Light Years from Home’ by Mike Chen was a perfect blend of family drama and sci-fi, with multifaceted characters that drove the wildly intriguing plot. There were times I wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t, the dynamics between the Shao siblings were raw and heartachingly real, and what sci-fi there was was out of this world. To make a long story short: ‘Light Years from Home’ was bittersweet, completely gripping, and you should read it ASAP. I can’t wait to read more of Mike Chen’s work!