Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an ARC. All opinions are my own.

I’ll be completely honest, the moment I read that title my mind immediately went to the quote “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night” and with a pretty cover like that, an instant need to read this story came over me. When I read the synopsis—part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com—and saw that its release date is on my birthday in the middle of pride month, I was sold. And then imagine my glee when I find said quote in the epigraph! I thought things couldn't get better.

So to say that I absolutely did not like this book guts me. I’m so incredibly disappointed to say that there isn’t a single thing I liked about this book. It was such a drag to get through and I always picked it back up with a long face only to fight my way through it, my eyes skimming half the words.

My issues with the book started from the beginning. At only three chapters in, my first irk was solidified. To me, writing is one of the most important things in a book. It can make or break a story. One can have a brilliant story idea but not have the skill to properly articulate it. Sadly I feel like this was the case here. Taking the fact that this is a debut author into account, I do not entirely blame them for the abysmal writing and the many inconsistencies. In this case feel like the editor is partially at fault too. Because I felt like this book was missing some serious rounds of edits. It read like a first draft, its sentences jumping from one thing to another to the point of giving me whiplash.
To take an example sentence out of context to show you what I mean:

<blockquote>He was Chinese American, tall enough to rest his chin on the top of Cleo’s head, and bouncing on the balls of his feet so rapidly that his floppy black hair was getting in his eyes.</blockquote>

This is just all over the place. What does his ethnicity have to do with his height and how does it move on to an off-handed description of how he moves and a description of his physical appearance in the SAME sentence? These phrases have nothing to do with each other and it would have read smoother if they had been in separate sentences. On top of this, the book is written in the third person from Cleo’s perspective. If this man was resting his chin on top of Cleo’s head, there was no way she would be able to see whether his hair was getting into his eyes. Such inconsistencies should be edited out.
There were plenty more sentences like this, with phrases that don’t connect well but are forced together with nothing but a comma separating them. It doesn’t read smoothly and it can really throw the reader off. There were also plenty more of these inconsistencies that are (admittedly) very small details but in the grand scheme of a book matter a whole lot and should have been edited out.
Of course, this can be a personal preference. Other readers might not spend as much time on such details or on the writing style as I do and therefore take no issue with the way this book was written. I just feel like this is something the editor should have taken up with the author to try and elevate the writing of this book.

A second thing I took issue with was the characters and their age. This is an adult sci-fi, the characters are all 27+ or even 30+ years old. I was so excited when I found out. As much as I love reading about teens taking over the galaxy, there is something special about seeing queer adults get their spotlight as well. As a queer 26-year-old myself, this was heartwarming and refreshing to see. Unfortunately, I did not feel like the characters acted their age. It felt more like I was reading about a cast of 14-year-olds. I mean, what adult in their right mind says “LOL” in a normal oral conversation? Not even teens say LOL out loud. I’ve read YA sci-fi books with characters who acted more maturely than the adults depicted in this book. There wasn’t a single character I liked, especially none of the characters in the squad. They constantly threw tantrums, unable to get a grip on their emotions. They had petty fights that were resolved in the next chapter in a “now shake hands” kindergarten kind of way. Only for them to start another fight the chapter after that.

After the initial chapters took off the story and the group of characters found themselves in space, the plot fell flat. What followed was a sequence of boring chapters in which the characters spent their time mostly doing useless things. The reader only reads about Cleo watching rom-coms from the 80’s or reading poetry. She and Billy, the ship’s holo computer program, constantly talked about old movies from the 80’s(?) and Shakespeare and other dead writers. Then JFK was thrown into it and I was left wondering why on earth the author would write a sci-fi set in the future if all they were going to focus on was the past. It’s the future for God’s sake! An exciting blank space of things that have yet to happen. You can fill it with your wildest imagination! Why focus on the past and things you can’t change?
But what bothered me most of all was why the characters were constantly doing these mundane things instead of trying everything in their power to find a solution to their dire situation. If I was stuck in space with the possibility of never making it back to Earth again, I wouldn’t have time to watch romcoms and read poetry. I’d be up at all hours doing research and experimenting to try and fix this mess.
The world building also had some serious issues and its construction overall felt very lazy to me. Things just <i>were</i>. There was no real grounding for any of the science/magic/whatever you want to call it. There’s this “Other Place” around which the plot revolves and it is all constructed in a too-convenient way that doesn’t make sense if you really think it through. To top it off, the ending was very deus ex machina and didn’t require any real effort from anyone’s side. It was underwhelming and did not leave a lasting impression. It’s not something to be blown away by.

And then there was the romance. Ugh, the <i>romance</i>. Cleo falls in love with a hologram. I don’t care how realistic the AI programming is. How much the holo Billy resembled Billy the human. It’s not an actual person. It’s not real. It’s just a computer program with a very complicated algorithm. I couldn’t ship it. I just couldn’t. To me, it wasn’t real. It was like reading about a person falling in love with an innate object. And while I know there’s a Greek myth out there that could pull this kind of plot off, this book couldn’t.

All things considered, I would normally give it a one star because, as mentioned before, there wasn’t a single thing I liked. Nothing stood out to me. This book did not make me Feel the Feels not blow me off my feet. The only reason I’m giving it two stars is because it’s queer. And as a queer person, I always try to support other queers, especially queer literature because I think it is important to broadcast queer media in this day and age. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to compromise my integrity by lying and saying I loved a queer book when I didn't. I hope it finds the audience it is meant for and that there are other readers out there who will love the book and find whatever they need in it.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the advance reader's copy of the book. This book was fantastic. Hands down one of the best of the year. It pulled me in and I couldn't stop. The plot was intriguing and I needed to keep reading to see where it would go and I was slightly concerned that the characters wouldn't get the ending I wanted them to have, but they did and I love tjat.The science wasn't too science-y that I couldn't understand it. I enjoyed the characters and their parts in the story. I loved this book. I will be recommending this to all of my book reading friends. I will be buying this when it officially releases. Bravo and well done to the author.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC
I am not a rom-com girl, but The Stars Too Fondly is a pleasant exception to the rule. The science fiction provided a great backdrop for exploring the relationship between Cleo and Billie. Overall, I don't have much to say on this one other than it's perfect for sapphic nerds who want a little romance.

I enjoyed this one! The Stars Too Fondly features a found family crew who get stuck on an unplanned interstellar journey when they accidentally start up a spaceship, and along the way need to solve the mystery of what happened to the crew that vanished without a trace on launch day. There's also a sweet sapphic romance with a very satisfying ending, Fantastic Four-type superpowers, and alternate dimensions.

I do think this book is a bit mismarketed--I went in expecting a sapphic sci fi rom com, and while there is a strong romance sub plot, I don't think this is well served by being labeled a rom com. It read to me like straight up sci fi that focused on friendships and the central mystery more than the romance, and it wasn't particularly comedic--more angsty than funny, in fact. These aren't criticisms of the book, which I enjoyed a great deal--I'm just not sure why it's being marketed as such.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! Opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for allowing me access to the e-Arc.

4.25 stars

I really enjoyed this! I love all the science, space, mystery and sapphic romance presented in this arc. The plot was very interesting. I think it made it more intriguing that the characters are trying to figure out what happened to the crew that disappeared. I feel like a lot of people who love science fiction with some romance will enjoy this.

I highly recommend it!

Vibes: everyone is queer, pretty much, grumpy x sunshine, grieving and falling in love, BIG MYSTERY--HUGE

Heat Index: 5/10

Cleo is obsessed with space--which is what leads to her friends accidentally launching a ship towards Proxima Centauri (and it will take... seven years there and back for them to return to Earth; if they survive). But in her defense, she was just trying to find out what happened to the crew that disappeared on launch day twenty years ago! And the the dark matter engine kicked off on its own! Fortunately (?) they're quickly joined by a hologram of Billie, the ship's vanished captain. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember exactly what happened. Or what's going to happen now. Also, she seems to really dislike Cleo--or does she?

OH, this was a lot. Both in terms of genres--it's like, sci-fi with some pretty hard science, I think, knowing nothing about science, plus a bit of magic, plus romcom, plus like... a treatise on loss and loving again?--and plot. This is definitely, ultimately, a romance. And it it's really quite beautiful. Yes, there are jokes, yes there's a mystery that actually gave me a bit of the creeps (in a good way), but ultimately this is about one woman who's gone through this massive loss having her heart cracked open by someone who's sort of given up on everything that seems to matter to her and is trying to ignore that by charging into space.

It bit off a lot. Like, this is a big swing of a book, and it's not perfectly perfect. But it is really good.

Quick Takes:

--This is a textbook grumpy/sunshine book. Billie is a take-no-prisoners alpha bitch, and even in hologram form (to be clear: the hologram is fully sentient, the "real" Billie essentially uploaded her consciousness into the ship right before disappearing) she isn't afraid to boss people around. She has a hard shell, and she's not easy to get through to.

Cleo, on the other hand, is bright and curious and perhaps doesn't take life seriously enough (which is definitely in part a coping mechanism for how badly the Earth is doing... which uh, hit pretty close to home!). Billie puts her in order and forces her to face shit head on; Cleo forces Billie to be a kinder, gentler person and breaks through her walls in a way she really needs. Their love story is really touching, and if you're the type of person who loves to see a hardened person get broken down by falling in love (like me) you'll love this.

--There's so much representation in this cast of characters! The "crew" is made up of an Asian man, Abe, whose partner (also in the group) Kaleisha is a Black trans woman. You also have Rose, who's non-binary, Cleo, who's a Black lesbian, and Billie, a bi woman, making up the primary team. It's all woven in very naturally, and you get the sense that everyone cares for each other and has this sense of solidarity. Just little things, like everyone checking to see if the ship has the hormones Kaleisha needs (don't worry, it does).

I also actually really appreciated the way that Billie was implied to be a woman who primarily dated women and then had her sexuality questioned after she got engaged to a man. Her relationship with the fiance she lost, Neil, is a huge part of who she is--and it's not invalidated by her falling in love with Cleo, or vice versa. In fact, so much of Billie's arc is informed by her grief and pain. She literally ran to space to escape her grief, and it's like--you just can't. And you also can't avoid the reality of moving on, and the fear that comes with loving people you may lose. Oof.

--The mystery was so eerie? Like, the idea of an entire crew of astronauts just disappearing right when they were meant to be launched into space... can you imagine the podcasts?

Hamilton wove this in really well--you get news articles, and especially comms between members of the crew, most of them involving Billie. Which is... man. It feels so sinister, and it also feels a bit separate from the Billie you see in the active present, because this is the "disappeared" Billie, not the hologram. It was a little stomach-churning for me, because, though I knew this was a romance and therefore would have an HEA, I still felt so worried for her and worried about what she was withholding.

--My one critique would be that I do feel like the story goes on a bit long, and could have had the ending shortened a bit. You kind of have this big climactic moment, and then we have to pick up the pieces and hurry to tie up loose ends. Which couldn't be entirely avoided, given the plot of the novel, but could have been a bit tidier. Not a huge issue at all, though, and it was nice to sort of bask in Billie and Cleo's relationship at that point.

The Sex:

So like. Billie is a hologram. Therefore, she can't touch or be touched. Which does put a hold on the physical sex in the novel, but doesn't stop it from being sexy and sexual. I mean, in a lot of ways I found the tension between Billie and Cleo hotter than some of the klutzy sex scenes I've read recently--and that's saying something coming from me, Little Miss Write More Sex.

That said, there is one full sex scene in the book, and it is quite hot. Won't tell you how it comes about, but you won't be dissatisfied. Neither were they.

I am not a sci-fi person. I'm not against it, but I often find it difficult to follow and a bit too cerebral for me to get emotionally involved, even when it's a sci-fi romance. This is the kind of sci-fi that works for me. It exists to serve the characters, and while the science is definitely fairly involved, it's not difficult to understand. (At least for me.)

I keep coming back to this, but I just found the emotional themes of the novel really moving in a way I didn't expect. It felt kind of heartbreaking at points. But thanks to the magic of a romance novel, it comes back to this circle of love and warmth (which really does transcend romantic love, too--the platonic bonds in this novel are great). My heart was full.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

To be honest, I loved everything about this book! I was rooting for Cleo, Ros, Kal, and Abe the entire time. I loved all the science in the science fiction and delighted in every twist and turn of the book!

This was a fun, interesting space read. I love the cover. I feel like if you're very into YA or sapphic stories, then this one is def for you!

This was a really fun sapphic sci-fi space odyssey.

Really blown away by the excellent story telling. It had all of my favorite elements of a fantastic tale: Found Family, clever dialogue, and a beautiful love story.

Stunning debut! Will definitely read more by this author.

Sapphic rom-com in space?! So up my alley, it's not even funny! This was a fun ride start to finish, and I loved the progression of the relationship a lot! I cannot wait to see more from this author!

I really enjoyed this debut. It is full of heart and has a great cast of characters. We meet our found-family crew just before they are thrown to the metaphorical wolves when they accidently launch themselves into space while trying to investigate a famous, failed space launch 20 years prior in which the entire crew disappeared. As they begin to work out what they are going to do now we learn more about them and also begin to learn about that failed launch and what preceded the disaster. While this is definitely sci-fi it is on the lighter side with the how and why of the science playing a supporting role to the how and why of the people and relationships. I look forward to more from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperVoyager for the ARC!

As a newbie dipping their toes into sci-fi, this was not the best book to start with. I got a little lost and parts were a challenge, but overall it's a great story! If you're a sci-fi fancy you're going to handle it just fine. The sapphic love story about a woman and a hologram was delightful too. Definitely would recommend!

thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for a review!

this gets four stars because i had fun. cleo and billie are the most compelling characters by far, which is good, because the book is about them! i do wish i'd gotten to see more of literally any of the other characters, because ros's arc was genuinely interesting, but cleo and billie are great and i like them a lot.

this read like a ya book i'll be real, even though the characters were supposedly 28 or so. i personally think it's more fun if you just ignore that fact and pretend everybody is like eighteen. there are definitely scenes that are not ya (and reminded me that in fact i was not reading ya!) but the general space-fantasy-wobbly science is especially interesting if you read it like you're reading ya.

the writing style irked me at times and then i came to terms with the fact that it sounded like MY writing style so ignore that complaint completely. i understand why my english teacher wanted me to stop using em dashes because at one point i did count 13 on one page. if you are not a pedant you will probably not notice this! i am simply hyperaware because i have that problem in my own stories.

however, despite any issues i had with this book, i had more fun. if you're looking for an airtight sci-fi thriller, this is not the book for you---if you are looking for a good time with sapphic romance and science fantasy, you will LOVE this book !

This was a lot. If your a seasoned scifi reader it will probably be a lot easier to grasp but for a newbie not so much. This one also blends in fantasy elements into the sicfi story really well. It all starts when these young 20 somethings plan a heist and ends up way off the beaten path. There's a saffic love story between a girl and a hologram basically that develops along with a great mystery of what happened to a crew and their captain. The mystery and mind bending communication are what really set this apart from other space stories. Space itself felt like it's own character at one point and definitely makes you feel claustrophobic at times. Overall cleo and her group are all really relatable and fun to root for on their incredible journey on their stolen ship. Highly recommend for young scifi readers.

This is a fun, quick read. It has just the right balance of science and heart to make this breezy but not too fluffy. I really enjoyed how the story unfolded in parts, with old articles and interviews.

I loved the idea of falling in love with a hologram of a real person and the juicy drama and confusion that would entail, but that wasn’t explored. My main complaint is that the relationships felt a bit too easy, both platonic and romantic. I don’t mind love at first sight, but the characters need to gel. Billie has a history of loving “sunshine” people and Cleo doesn’t fit that description, so their instant attraction didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

But they were sweet, and the characters and the story were sweet too.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperVoyager for the ARC!

Plot summary: a team of four idealistic-yet-somewhat-jaded twentysomethings (Cleo McQueary, MC, computer engineer; Ros Wheeler, red-headed genderqueer doctor; Kaleisha Reid, trans Black botanist; Abe Young, Chinese-American historian and Kaleisha’s bf) break into an old decommissioned spaceship, accidentally end up in outer space, get super powers, and save the galaxy. In short: fun!!

I feel like maybe this should be classified as YA and I like it more when I think about it that way. I think a lot of YA books would work much better with older characters rather than teenagers, like with this book, although there is a tiny bit of spice at the end. It’s very Gen Z (will TikTok still be around in 2061? Honestly I hope not… hopefully we have something much better by then), so there is a feeling that the language and some references will feel dated in a few years, which seems like the opposite of what science fiction should be. But for now, it’s cute and relatable, if a bit more towards the younger side.

Some things that might not work for certain readers: the science and the dialogue. I’m not a huge sci-fi girlie and often only read books in this genre that are gay because I’m just a sad queer myself, so I’m not going to speak to the science parts of the book. I feel like it leaned into science fantasy anyway. It is also very dialogue heavy. I enjoyed the conversations between Cleo and Billie, but the crewmates were sort of interchangeable to me. Cleo and Billie did have distinctive personalities and I actually really liked Billie as the love interest. Full marks for her! Though maybe deducting one point for liking Torres over Seven of Nine. We can’t all have flawless Star Trek taste.

It does have some very important things to say about capitalism and progress in the name of progress, but at its core, The Stars Too Fondly is a light-hearted space adventure where love wins and everybody lives.

<img src=“https://thephasemag.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/lives-alive.gif?w=498”/>

Don’t think too hard. You’ll have more fun that way.

<i>“You love me? So much that I felt it across dimensions?”
“Of course,” Billie said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.</i>

If you're as old as I am, you remember the movie Space Camp, and the premise here has some similarities - a bunch of kids end up being launched into space. In this case, Cleo's dream of being an astronaut has come true, but along with finding what happened to the crew of a former mission twenty years ago, other things start getting weird.

For one, the hologram of the ship's captain, Billie, is not the nicest to Cleo - but aside from the secrets that abound, there are changes on the horizon for Cleo, and not just regarding her dream of being in space.

The Stars Too Fondly is probably at my limit for how science-y it was, but I am glad I got through it because of the rest of the story. Cleo and Billie carry the book and they are a delightful pair of characters.

This book is a really nicely done balance of the space odyssey and the romance aspects of the novel. I really don’t have too much to day about this book other than I really enjoyed it, but one major thing I want to point out is that one of the romantic interests (the older one if you can believe it) is canonically gen alpha, which is absolutely insane to me. I mean I know it’s set a few decades in the future, but still. I also love a good queer found family every once in a while, and this absolutely delivered that.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

2 stars

First, the good things:
The opening line of this book is great. It was memorable, funny and a great way to start.

I thought the world building was interesting. I liked the big mystery of a crew that disappeared.

There were a lot of things I struggled with in this book.
The biggest one was the amount of dialogue in this book. I think at least a third of this book was dialogue. Because there was so little prose, it was often hard to follow what was happening. Also, all the dialogue was the same five people the majority of the book, which made it quite monotonous. Something happens - the group bickers about it. I never felt like there were tonal shifts where there should have been because all the action took place in the dialogue. I wish we were in the characters heads more often.

I also struggled with how science-y the book was trying to be. This could come from me being a science guy, and others wouldn't have this issue, but it always rattled my suspension of disbelief. The author definitely did a little research on dark matter, but it felt out of place and strange. I wish they had just hand waved the science of it. I think if the author's going to talk about WIMPs, they also should have to address general relativity. Also, there was already so much handwaving.

Another problem I had was the pacing of the book, especially at the beginning. The characters go from their mission to in space in a matter of moments, and then past Jupiter 5 hours later. I wish it took more like 2 days to get past Jupiter.

The romance I also struggled with. Because the entire book is dialogue, there is no time that we are in the character's head to understand how she is feeling. Instead, the first we hear of is she's dreaming about the other person, and then they're in love. I also felt like I never got any sense of affection from the other character until quite a ways in. (view spoiler) Also, Billie is so rude and snarky at the start, it put me off her character for a while. She's not fun snarky, she's just unlikable.

Also, the BBEG is referred to as the "rainbow voice" multiple times, just say "the voice," readers will know who you mean.