This book was a case of fun concept, middling execution for me. It was the kind of story that I think would've worked better as a movie. The writing flowed smoothly, though I felt like there could've been more action. For a heist book, it was surprisingly boring at times. It was a pretty fun book overall though with an interesting setting and a diverse cast of characters.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

This futuristic, queer, Hawaiian heist book deserves every bit of praise it has gotten and then some. This book was soooo good. Edie, our main character was a thief, eight years ago, before their best friend/maybe more sent them to prison. Now they're out on good behavior and their goal is to go clean to help their older sister and her kids, who have rent and a small business to support and medical bills. But Edie soon learns they've been blacklisted for work on the station, and conveniently then Angel appears. Angel, the old friend who betrayed Edie all those years ago. She's now the head of security for Joyce Atlas, an Elon Musk like figure who owns a tech company and informally rules the whole station. This puts Angel in the perfect place to rob Atlas blind, and boy does she have a plan to do it. It involves a bonded pair of lesbian con artists, a childhood friend with a penchant for cybernetic enhancements, a bratty teenage thief, a former acrobat turned exotic dancer, a teenage hacker whose computer is her brain, and naturally, Edie. If they can pull this off, none of them will ever need money again. If they get caught, none of them will see the light of day again. On top of it all, Edie and Angel's complicated relationship is, as it would seem, complicated.
This is such a good heist novel. If you've ever enjoyed Ocean's Eight but wished the gayness was more explicit, this book is for you. If you've ever heard of Juno Steele and enjoyed that show, this book is for you. This is just, chef's kiss of a book. I adored all the characters, and the team is just perfect, ideal, wonderful. I love when families commit crimes. Edie and Angel's relationship too is so messy and complex and also delicious. The suspense is also so well done. This book was fantastic and there's going to be a sequel (ish) out Malia who was maybe my favorite character. Cy was also maybe my favorite. Read this book.

As soon as Edie gets out of jail, for being involved in some sort of theft, they're offered a job on a big heist. The kind of job that will set them up for life, or more importantly to Edie, to pay for a family member's health treatment. From there, a lot of the build-up feels like Ocean's Eleven (which is a comp). They are rounding up a rag-tag group of people with specialized skill sets to get the job done.

Feelings and history linger between Edie and Angel that we get bits and pieces of throughout. We see Edie interact with their family and try to adjust to life being out. I loved the family interactions because they highlighted some of the very real struggles people are dealing with now. I would have liked to see more information included on the mods and how all that worked. There were a ton of moving parts in this story; maybe almost to its detriment because a lot of things didn't get the coverage/closure that they possibly could have otherwise.

Thanks to Avon and Harper Voyager for an eARC and physical ARC of this book for an honest review.

Hammajang Luck by Yamamoto Makana



“The ones we love are never truly lost. We find them every day, in every joyful memory.”

“It made me wonder where we’d all end up, because I couldn’t imagine my life without them in it”

I LOVE A HEIST!!!! This was sooo good! This combined two of my great loves: scifi and HEISTS! This whole novel felt very Ocean’s 11 with a Science Fiction twist. Edie is a character you want to root for. I wanted her to win so badly and so many people were working against her! I also really enjoyed the crew. A great found family that reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy, arguing and then fighting for each other. Something else I really enjoyed was how the author balanced all the parts of the story. Between Edie and her past, her family, the crew, the complex relationship with Angel as well as the Hawaiian customs and details, this was a wonderfully well crafted novel. Definitely for fans of Fast & The Furious and Guardians of the Galaxy!

I would like to thank NetGalley, Harper Voyager, and the author for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Read if you like:
🚀 Sci-Fi
💰 Heists
🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQIA2s+ rep
👨‍🎤 Cyberpunk vibes

1️⃣ POV
📍 Kepler Space Station (fictional)

“Other people may have jumped at the chance, but I knew too well that there were no gifts or grace on Kepler. Everything had a price. I just didn’t know how much this would cost me - yet.”

After eight years in prison, when a surprise early parole is granted, Edie is done with crime. Edie just wants to go home to their family. As Edie leaves prison, the woman who should have shared in Edie’s triumph but instead sold Edie out, is waiting for her. Angel has job for Edie. One last heist for more money than they could have ever dreamed of. All Edie has to do is trust Angel again.

This book was like the Ocean’s movies but set in space with Cinder cyber vibes. The beginning was a little bit slow as you get into the world building and backstory but once the crew started to form it was fast paced and I couldn’t put the book down at the end. I also had to get used to the Hawaiian Pidgin that gets mixed in but it was a lot of fun and made the setting and culture of the characters unique. All the characters were interesting, even the side characters. I also loved the gene therapy shout out at the end! If you’re looking for a different setting for a high stakes heist, pick this one up!

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto
Genre: Science Fiction I Heist
Narrator: Jolene Kim
Length: 11 hours, 48 minutes
Release Date: January 14, 2025

All of my buddy read friends read this long before I got to it, but here’s my review now that i’ve finally finished it. I will start off by saying that I really enjoyed the depth of the culture that we experienced through the characters. My first boyfriend ever is Chamorro and it took me back to a lot of those core memories, I truly love how writing can trigger those memories that I don’t typically think about. I LOVE a heist, I have a lot of friends that say that they hate a heist, but I couldn’t disagree more. If you have recommendation for one, please leave it below.
As much as I loved those aspects I really have a couple of gripes, namely being that there were so many characters but I didn’t feel like I was able to conform a connection with a lot of them so it made them not stand out. My biggest gripe of them all is the relationship between Edie and Angel. I really did not like it at all, I felt like they were both a bit too annoying for my taste. I wanted more depth from this story and unfortunately it fell short for me.

This was a really fun way to kick off the reading year. It’s high-octane, high-energy. The story is headed by a chaotic nonbinary butch lesbian who thrives on taking risks. I just enjoyed myself every time I got a chance to read this.

I love how everything in this story is built around the heist, which may seem like an obvious thing to say, but honestly we get a lot of books that bill themselves as heist stories where the actual heist and even preparing for the heist is only a sliver of the actual story. I thought this particular story struck a really great balance between developing character and refining the crew dynamic and also laying all the necessary groundwork leading up to the actual heist.

So often in these kinds of stories, we get a vague plan, maybe a few scenes about gathering intel, and then we’re just thrown into the actual heist—which inevitably goes wrong in some way. What I found refreshing about this story is that the reader gets to witness each part of the plan as it gradually comes together, and we actually get to see each crew member in action playing their part both leading up to and through the heist itself, which just makes for a much more fulfilling pay-off.

But besides all the great sci-fi action and the intricate world-building regarding life on this stratified space station, I appreciate how this plotline is complicated be Edie’s love for their family and how their loyalty is torn between the crew and making up for lost time with the people they love. I feel like ultimately, even though this is a fast-paced, action-forward sci-fi crime story, it’s really exploring how the most valuable commodity that capitalism takes from us is our time and our energy—two incredibly valuable things that we can never regain for ourselves. You can make up for lost time, but you can never actually get back time that you’ve lost. That’s something Edie is really struggling with, because they think stealing all this money will finally give their family everything they’ve ever wanted or needed, while also proving how they can be valuable to their family, all the while not realizing that simply being part of their family and showing up for their loved ones is, in fact, enough.

So I respect that tension in the story between acknowledging that capitalism is real and has a very real boot on so many of our necks while also showcasing the importance of reallocating our time and our energy under capitalism as a huge middle finger to the powers that be.

Again, I really enjoyed my time with this story. I thought it was a cool take on a space heist. There were great supporting characters and a really cool use of Hawaiian Pidgin dialect throughout the book. I will say I wasn’t entirely on board with the whole lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers dynamic between Edie and Angel. And I also think their ultimate goal for the heist is a bit contradictory to their own politics in some ways. So I was a little bit iffy by the resolution of the story. But overall, I would still give this a strong four stars.

OOOO I am so excited for this premise! Super queer Ocean's 11-esq space hiest? With a ton of queer charatcers and a friends-enemies-lovers charcter dymaic? Exactly what I needed! I did a tandem read of the audiobook and the Kindle version and loved both. The narrator was fantastic and pulled me into the story. I do wish we got to see more of the world, as I loved a lot of the cool sci-fi elements, and overall, the world was so unique, but I'm expecting to see more in the following releases.
Will defintly be keeping up with this series and so happy I snagged the illumicrate edition

I regret being a mood reader, especially when this would have been a balm when I received the ARC (my bad Avon and Harper Voyager things were on fire) based on what was happening in the world. "Hammajang Luck" by Makana Yamamoto is a heist story in a cyberpunk future (least we can get cool mech bits in the horrific future).

8 years stuck in prison is a lot of time to fester on the person who got you sent there. And on the times you missed. Edie, on they day they get released, is greeted by the last person they wanted to see, Angel. And wouldn't you know it, her life is pretty swanky as the head of a security branch. Oh dear, everything on the space station has Edie blacklisted from work leaving few options. Unfortunately, this "one last job" is a target they have a history with, a tech trillionaire and real slime ball. Sure things won't go sideways.

Reasons to read:
-Space station cyberpunk with Hawai'i slang and bad things happing to rich jerks, sounds great to me
-Crew is all good and I appreciate a good plan
-The setting is super cool
-Lot of baggage to unpack
-Chromed up smack down

Cons:
-That's not an old age! They are young! My knees work!

4.75! THIS WAS SUCH A GREAT TIME!! I loved witnessing every part of the heist. Even with me predicting a few plotlines, I still very much enjoyed this story. Edie I need you on the big screen baby. The ONLY reason this isn't a 5 stars is because I thought it could be a bit longer!! There is a bit of a drip feed of a previous betrayal, and I think we needed more time with that. And of course more time with the crew to really feel those bonds. Brilliant read, highly recommend!

I'm not going to say this sapphic sci-fi heist novel cured all my woes, but I'm not not going to say if, if you know what I mean.

This book was so good. So deliciously queer. I loved the Hawaiian ancestry and representation. I loved the friends-to-enemies-to-allies-to-lovers romance central to the story. I loved each and every one of the supporting cast.

If you enjoyed Ocean's 8, you'll like this book.

Absolutely love a heist book -- this one is a wild ride. I love the diverse cast of characters and how the author integrates their native Hawaiian culture into the world building. The beginning is a little slow but once the crew is assembled and the actual heist of it all gets going the book really takes off.

4/5⭐️ Yo I did not know what type of ride I would be on with this book! This book here….was one hell of a ride! A great sci-fi heist! Come on who doesn’t love that! A young woman coming out of prison looking for a job but ended up going back to the life she only knows to score one big hit to live comfortably with her family! For real this was a good time and the humor was there! Great writing to keep me engaged and entertained because I sure was laughing in some parts! Also, a queer romance sprinkled in there! You can’t go wrong!

This was such a refreshing take on a sci-fi heist. Truly a love letter to Hawaii while holding such tenderness for queerness, the characters, their messiness and flaws but ultimate care for one another. I had such a fun time reading this, and highly recommend it! 4⭐

*Thank you again to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

CW: Sexual Harassment

Yamamoto has produced a fun heist novel, a difficult enough task on its own, while also building an intriguing sci-fi world and engaging characters. Most members of the heist crew are queer, including several that fall under the trans umbrella (including mahu, a Native Hawaiian identity). Likewise, most of members of the heist crew share a mix of Native Hawaiian and Asian ancestry and culture. Aside from just being a breath of fresh air and providing a great set up for a sci-fi universe that’s not typical white, CIS, Eurocentric, the cast’s shared identities are important because they feed into the needs of those involved and why they participate in the heist.

Main character, Edie, has emerged from a long prison stint to find their neighborhood and home falling to gentrification and oppression due to an unethical trillionaire who is like Zuckerberg and Musk blended into one nasty package. Their former partner, Angel, has carefully made her way up into said trillionaire’s company and pitches this “one last job” to several who, like Edie, are desperate. Some need the money for their families and themselves; some just as badly want to take down this company for the harm they have done to others.

Whatever its characters’ motivation, the novel offers a series of taut, action-packed moments, but without sacrificing the centrality of the characters and the world in which they live. As the heist squad learn to work together as a team, readers are likewise allowed to learn more about them and how their motivations fit together. The result is a very satisfying experience.

I really really enjoyed this novel, while I think the 3rd act could’ve used work and some polish as it felt like the author spent more time on act one than anything else, I nevertheless found the entire novel a beautiful exploration of a futuristic Hawaii and the effects of colonialism on Hawaii.

This is a fun, heart-filled space heist that blends cyberpunk aesthetics with deep cultural roots, but it doesn’t quite hit as hard as I wanted it to. The biggest strength? The characters—especially Edie, their sister Andie, and Andie’s kids. Their familial bond was the true heart of this story, full of warmth, regret, and the bittersweet struggle of trying to reconnect after years apart with all of their messy feelings - both love and guilt. The Hawaiian cultural elements felt rich and personal, and the use of pidgin made it feel truly immersive in the moments that focused on community. It felt like you, as the reader, were welcomed into the community itself, and that is such a powerful thing.

That said, the cyberpunk world didn’t feel as immersive as I wanted it to be. I expected a more tech-forward, atmospheric setting, but it felt more like a generic sci-fi backdrop rather than a lived-in, neon-drenched world. And while I love a good heist, the one here felt pretty generic and nothing really surprised me. The tension never quite reached a level where I worried about the outcome, and some of the more realistic elements of the heist just made certain sections drag.

Angel and Edie’s dynamic was interesting but ultimately felt doomed from the start. They were both clinging to past versions of each other, unable to move forward in a meaningful way, which made their relationship compelling but frustrating. And while I appreciated the hopeful, mostly happy ending, it felt a little too neat for the stakes that had been set up. I wish Angel and Edie would have grown together a little more slowly.

The book does an excellent job of showcasing economic disparity in the future and the way people are left behind in the pursuit of profit. It's happening now and there's no reason to assume that it won't happen in the future. That part of the story was razor-sharp and deeply felt.

This is a love letter to the Hawaiin culture and family. It features an underdog fight against the rich and powerful. It may not reinvent the heist genre, but it’s full of queer and complex characters that make it a worthwhile read.

Thanks so much to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

Incredible debut! Hammajang Luck is hilarious and fast-paced, and the hesitation starts almost right away. Loved the group of characters our MC encounters and the found family element present in the book. Also loved how beautifully woven in Native Hawaiian culture is throughout the book and the sci-fi/space colony setting that adds another layer of uniqueness. Will definitely be reading more from this author.

Took a while to get through but I really enjoyed this one! It was fun to watch the crew come together and I enjoyed how the author wrote pidgin dialects. The dynamic between Angel and Edie were complex and interesting and I liked how the other subplots kept weaving in those themes of trust and betrayal. The heist was a fun adventure but I also enjoyed the family moments with Andie and the kids. Just an all around good time.

Thank you netgalley for this ARC.

What an exciting and entertaining read. Set up much like a 'one more time' heist storyline, You get a fast-paced run of excitement and are taken on a journey by a group of characters who were easy to love and relate to. I thoroughly enjoyed this read from beginning to end, and even waited for an audio through my library to read through a second time before reviewing. It was a fun adventure. I highly recommend!

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.