Thank you so much to Makana Yamamoto, Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for an opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

As someone born, raised, and still living in Hawaii, Hammajang Luck was the book that I absolutely needed to read in my life.

The story follows Edie Morikawa, a non- binary individual who is released from prison following an 8-year sentence for a crime gone wrong. Determined to leave behind their former thievery ways, the plan is abandoned when their childhood friend, Angel Huang, enlists them to take part in a heist that could change their life.

The whole narrative is a definition of a love letter to Hawaii. The world is weaved with frequent elements of pidgin language, references to Hawaii's local culture, and highlighting the social imbalance that Hawaii continues to face between locals and haoles. The found family trope is at the forefront, and I enjoyed Edie's journey into learning to open up to other people outside their family. The heist plot wasn't rushed, taking the time to explore how every character played a role in the mission's success.

Two areas that could've been improved on were the romance and the sci-fi aspect of the world-building. I wanted just a little bit more of an emotional impact out of Edie and Angel's relationship, and there were times when I wished the world could've pushed more into the science fiction descriptions.

I highly recommend picking up this book if you want a light sci-fi read with LGBT characters, being immersed into a culture that isn't as represented in the sci-fi (or even fantasy to a broader extent) book community, and seeing my favorite parts of the landscape that I grew up in.

I was already intrigued by the concept of Hammajang Luck: a queer found family planning to steal billionaire tech on a cyberpunk space station. Not only is this concept well executed, but there is an additional layer to the story that can be summarized as Hawaiian resistance. As I write this review, the income gap continues to grow wider and gentrification continues to push out residents from their homes, especially in Hawai’i. Hammajang Luck is not only an entertaining read but a cathartic one for these troubling times. Edie is the staple scrappy hero who not only desires more in their life, but actually deserves more than what they were handed. As do the rest of our endearing ensemble cast. What an exciting new voice in Science Fiction!

Pitched as a Sci-fi Ocean's 8 with Blade Runner leanings, this heist novel sits with a lot of the great heist novels fairly well. I enjoyed the fast paced set up of the heist, the recruitment of the various players, and also the back story of the main character with their family.
I loved the queerness of this story, the premise of what the future could look like, and also the societal commentary of what the world looks like now. Makana did a good job setting up the relationship between Edie and Angel with all of the messiness that happens over time. I would have liked to read a little bit more of their backstory before Edie went to prison, but other than that, this book is very well done.

I do recommend the story for those who like heist stories but want to see a new setting.

I picked this up because the publisher comps piqued my interest: "a queer sci-fi debut and beautiful love letter to Hawai’i...perfect holiday escape for fans of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir or Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. [and] Oceans 8 meets Blade Runner." That's a disparate enough set of comparisons that I needed to learn more. While it's not not comparable to those, it's not quite the SoC or Gideon vibes, though trope-wise there are some similarities. That said, the vibes for Ocean's 8 are *spot on* and the setting feels a bit like Blade Runner 2049.

Edie has spent the last 8 years in prison, serving time because their best friend Angel betrayed them. Out 6 months early on parole, they're wary of taking on another job that could land them back in prison, but because Angel is asking, they're taking. Angel and Edie build a crack team to infiltrate the HQ of megacorp Atlas, a corp responsible for wrecking the lives of so many in the Lower Wards and compounding the wealth in the Upper Wards of their space station.

Like any good heist, we need a good crew, and Yamamoto spends time carefully introducing us to the team. In a movie, this would be a montage. In book form, it takes considerable page time, which did hurt the pacing for me overall. If you can hang on through crew intros, it's worth it though, because the team creates a great Found Family and excellent team to try to bring down Atlas.

Hammajang Luck has a cinematic feel to it - not in the sense that it's overly descriptive, but that you get a cinematic heist feel through lots of dialogue and action. It's a solid debut, and "Be Queer Do Crime in Space" is always a good sell for me for a book.

Hammajang Luck is a book that once it was on my radar I immediately needed to read. The story follow Edie, a non-binary ex-con, as they embark on a heist with their former childhood best friend angel, and the woman who betrayed they landing them in prison, on a heist targeting the richest man on Kepler space station. Through out the book Edie nagiviates complicated feelings about Kepler, their family, and most of all their ever present feelings for Angel.

I found myself deeply engrossed in the story of Hammajang Luck. Watching Edie struggle to re-acclimate to life outside of prison, their guilt for missing so much of their sister’s life and their nieces and nephews childhood was compelling. I really felt for Edie, who want desperately to go clean and live a safer life in pursuit of staying with their family only to find themself blocked and unable to due to the crimes they are trying to no longer commit. Edie’s love of their home and their mentality around it that has been passed down to them by their father is also a strong point in the story and really added something interesting a different that I normally don’t see in sci-fi stories. My only real issue with the story is for a found family story I do wish we had just a bit more time with the crew bonding, but other than that I felt this was a really stellar read.

I look forward to anything else from Makana Yamamoto in the future. Their love of Hawaii, and the islands’ unique culture shines through the entire book which is what makes this such a wonderful read.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was drawn to this book by descriptions I'd read of its queer cast and its Hawaiian-based space setting (and that cover, which is excellent). Happily, my favorite things about it are also related to those two aspects.

In particular, I really loved this book's relationship to queerness. There are three—THREE!—butch characters in the crew, all of different genders and presentations: Edie (them/them), Cy (he/him), and Duke (she/her). Butches are uncommon enough in genre fiction, and to see this kind of breath of representation is virtually unheard of. To that end, I really enjoyed that not only is this book not told from the perspective of the crew mastermind, thus giving us a unique lens for the heist story, it's told through the perspective of one of those butches. Though Kepler is seemingly a queernormative world and our characters' problems don't appear to stem from their gender identities or sexualities, the book is still aware of how its characters are socialized into different jobs based on their physical representation (masc-presenting characters like Cy and Edie tend to end up as dock workers, whereas femme characters like Angel and Sara find themselves in strip clubs and on street corners).

Unfortunately, however, I didn't find myself particularly invested in most of the characters. The relatively minor conflicts between them felt forced (I'm thinking in particular of Edie's spats with Tatiana), while, simultaneously, it never felt like any of them—Edie and Angel included—would betray or backstab any of the others. Most of them felt quite flat. I didn't care a single bit about the romance between Edie and Angel.

Similarly, I have never consumed a more sedate piece of heist media. While I didn't pick up this book FOR the heist, I still certainly wanted to be entertained by it. Nothing went seriously wrong! Where is the stress? The jeopardy? Heists should be tense and fun and engaging! Instead, the book felt slow and the heist too easy.

All in all, despite what I enjoyed and even just appreciated about this book, it was ultimately a bit of a letdown for me.

Rating: 🤷🏼‍♀️ (it was fine; 3.5 rounded down)

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperVoyager for the advance copy of this title!

Three and a half stars. I was excited to read Hammajang Luck - queer sci-fi space heist? Yes please. And I enjoyed it.

Edie's suddenly paroled from jail through their ex's (who put them there!) influence after eight years. After re-connecting with their family, friends, and discovering they've been blacklisted from employment on their generational space station, they get pulled into a crew by their ex, to do a big heist. The crew is fun - we get recruitment scenes for everyone. There's some tension and mistrust between Edie and Angel (the ex), there's a lot of "I'd do anything for my family," and there's a very ill niece. There's some danger and excitement during the heist. I wasn't mad to read this book.

What I really loved was the Hawaiian family connections in this book - the deep ties back to the home world, the community that developed over generations on the space station, the food, the pidgin - that sung. I haven't read books, especially sci-fi, that rep Hawaiian culture, and this felt really true and developed.

But on reflection, it never was quite enough of anything. All the recruitment scenes for the heist were fun, but there wasn't that movie montage feeling of prepping and planning for a big heist. The tension between Edie and Angel wasn't fully clear for a long time and I wasn't fully invested in their HEA.

I'm very interested to see where the author goes next as they've got a perspective I'd love to read more of. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5⭐
I added this to my want-to-read back in early 2023 based solely on the pitch of ‘cyberpunk lesbian heist’. There wasn’t even a cover yet! I am so happy to say this met my expectations wonderfully.

I was really rooting for Edie to be able to make a comfortable life for Andie and the kids, and the found family vibes with Cy, and then how he and Edie (and Duke and Nakano (side note, I love these two so much??) took Sara (first heist), and Malia and Tatiana (literally teenagers) under their wings was *chefs kiss* I love heists and also crime groups that turn into family. And it was so very queer, with so much more gender going on than I often see!

And a horrible trillionaire gets his shit absolutely wrecked by the queer crime family. You love to see it.

Can’t wait to see what Yamamoto does next, because this was a hell of a debut.

🌟: 4.75

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I love a heist book.

The world that Makana Yamamoto has created with this book is diverse and richly layered. I loved following the characters through the different areas of Kepler. The world building was so imaginative, while also being grounded as, with each Ward that Edie visits, the gentrification that the communities in the lower wards are suffering becomes apparent.

While the book is told entirely from Edie's perspective, I loved the way the author seamlessly wove in scenes that Edie wasn't immediately participating in through the use of their comms. Meaning, we are able to listen in on entire conversations along with Edie, so we can stay involved with each crew member's job in the heist without having to change perspectives.

Heist stories go hand in hand with the found family trope, which was executed so well in this book. Each member of the crew was unique in their own way. From Tatiana's endless needling of Edie to Malia's constant upbeat commentary, I loved watching them all bond and become a true family. The true shining stars for me, however, were Duke and Nakano. I LOVED listening in with Edie on the scams that they would run as a part of the heist, whether it was planned or improvised, they were just so good.

Apparently I'm in the mood for angst this month, because what I loved most about this book was the tension between Edie and Angel. There is a LOT of history between the two, and a lot of festering pain considering Angel is the reason that Edie was sent to prison. This makes every interaction of theirs loaded and I was eating it up, just waiting for the moment that the dam would break and they, particularly Edie, would let loose how they really feel (it also makes their eventual confession of feelings that much more cathartic).

I know I already said this story hooked me, but I'm going to say it AGAIN because I was so immersed in the story. From Edie's bond with their family, to their complicated relationship with Angel, to the crew's quest to pull off the heist of a lifetime, I was on edge waiting to see how it all ended for these wonderfully lovable and messy characters. So please, even if heist books aren't your thing, READ IT.

It was hard to rate this one because my review is torn between two facts: the fact that I didn't personally enjoy it, and the fact that I would recommend it to a different audience than myself. To address the former, the characters all felt like caricatures to me with nothing really distinguishing them from the usual heist team archetypes. The complex relationship between Edie and Angel was the most compelling and genuine part, and it's what kept me reading through the end (though I'm still not sure why Edie's reaction to seeing the person who PUT HER IN JAIL after 8 years was so demure?????). The worldbuilding was pretty superficial and served more as window dressing. That being said, this would be a great introduction to sci-fi/cyberpunk for readers who've never delved into those genres, especially folks who are more interested in the main romance and interpersonal conflict than setting/political intrigue/etc (plus great queer rep!).

I was drawn to this book with the comp to Six of Crows, which is one of my favorite heist stories ever. Unfortunately, I think that set my expectations too high. There was a lot to love about this book, but also some misses for me. The main elements I loved were the themes surrounding family and the heist itself. Yamamoto focused both on the family you choose as well as the family you’re born into in different but equally important ways. I also really loved the actual heist. It felt realistic to me in the approach that Yamamoto took. Also, how can you hate on using a dildo as a vehicle to introduce malware to a system. That’s going to live rent free in my head for a while. The misses for me, though, were the build up to the heist and the pacing. I missed the tension and high stakes anxiety that usually leads up to a big heist. I also felt that pacing was off slowing down too much at points, where I struggled to stay invested in the story. Overall, I did enjoy it, and I’m glad I read it.
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Overall Rating: 3.5⭐️

I could tell from the first few pages that Hammajang Luck was going to be an average—though not unenjoyable!—read for me.

The fusion of elements of the Hawaiian diaspora with the off-planet setting of Kepler Station fascinated me. Although the characters still seem to hold onto earthly ties, the integration of Hawaiian pidgin, traditional foods, and relationship structures grounds their community anew. However, I wasn’t satisfied with the sparse hints of worldbuilding. I’m not sure how this specific cultural community developed—and in space!—or really what the universe looks like at all in the novel. The ‘cyperbunk’ aspect landed similarly for me; it was there, with technological advances like neural implants and cancer cures, but I struggled to feel immersed.

Edie didn’t stick out as a protagonist to me either. I think their character was too wrapped up in the far past and the far future, which made it difficult to connect with them in the present timeline. It seemed like tensions between them and other characters were only shallowly scratched, and I honestly wanted these tensions to boil over more. Eight years in prison is a long time, and though everyone kept remarking on the length, the changes could’ve been more apparent.

That said, Edie’s relationships with their family members were earnest and adorable, and I liked how their protectiveness of children extended to members of the heist as well. I wish I had gotten to know the side characters (Malia! Duke and Nakano! Even one-dimensional Atlas) more since they were written so compatibly, but I think the smoothness of the heist actually prevented a fair amount of depth.

(Also, I would not have forgiven Angel so readily, and I’m surprised that they remained such a central figure in the novel.)

Incredible world building, this follows a heist format so perfectly so you know exactly what to expect in the same way that you never really know what to expect once they’re in it.

I really, really loved Edie, I loved how they were an “I’ll burn the world for you” type character but never in a forceful way like you might see in a dark romance or romantasy, it felt like a quiet fire the entire book that could flare at any time.

There was language in here that wasn’t written for me, so it took a little brain power to interpret what was being said, but that’s because it’s not my language and was for the author and their culture and their community, and I loved that. It made the whole thing feel like a love letter to Hawai’i.

I think I wish some of the crew’s characters had been fleshed out a bit more, but I loved Sara and Malia, and by the end, I loved Tatiana. And it was so queer and diverse and inclusive, this really is a gay sci-fi Ocean’s 8 and I love that we now have this in the universe!

I have a lot of opinions about Angel, but they’re all deep in spoiler territory. So here goes:<spoiler>I don’t think I would’ve forgiven Angel, I think I would’ve sold her out at the first turn. And honestly, the romance was mid for me, but the heisting and planning was so good that it makes up for it? I’m just not really into falling for a manipulator, and I think I would’ve been better off if they’d been friends at the end.</spoiler>

If anyone’s looking for a queer as fuck book, this is going on an immediate recommendation list.

I feel like comparing this to Gideon the Ninth in the blurb was a bit of a poor choice, as people who have read the book will come to expect certain things. But anyway. This book was slow, like really slow, much slower than you'd expect and still slower than you're probably imagining while reading this review. The author clearly put mental time and effort into the world-building but I just struggled with the descriptions sometimes--I had a hard time truly visualizing some of it. My last gripe was that the anti-hero/villain of the story just felt like a Disney channel movie villain--it felt cartoony, in a way, or like an exaggeration of a true villain to make it obvious and easier to pick out that they're the bad guy. The weirdest part about all of this is that I did actually kinda like this, and yet I struggled so much with it. I think that's why it was so hard for me to rate it, because on a finer scale I did have a handful of issues with this but on a larger scale I enjoyed it a solid amount, I don't know.

In Hammajang Luck, Edie is fresh out of an eight year jail sentence. Their former criminal partner Angel already has one last job (for real this time) she wants them on. It’s for an amount that Edie cannot afford to say no to, not if they want to be able to take care of their family. Edie gets swept up as Angel’s second in command, and they’ll need to build the perfect team if they want to take down their trillionaire target.

I had so much fun with this! The cast is varied enough that we get enough of each character for me to buy anyone could be a reader’s favorite. The target of their heist is cartoonishly evil and while “tech dystopia where you have mods the bbeg is literally listening to your thoughts and catering ads” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it doesn’t need to when it does the genre this well. Also, truly hats off for having the most reasonable explanation as to why Edie and Angel didn’t work out their relationship as teenagers.

I also have not encountered a sci-fi book so far in the future that was this interested with cultural identities from our present world. This book is not the same without the Old Earth Hawaiian traditions and customs that shape the way the cast of Asian and Pacific Islanders interact with one another. Gender and sexuality is literally whatever in this world and it is so beautiful (it might just be something that falls under further medical expenses but unfortunately capitalism tech dystopia means that’s a lot worse). I really adore sci-fi that engages with body modification without taking cheap transhumanism horror potshots and no further exploration.

This is the best sci-fi heist novel I’ve ever read. Let 2025 be the year of heist novels where we actually get to see the heist!

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the eARC.

A certified banger and no doubt one of my favorite things I read in 2024. Although I read it slowly, I never wanted to put it down. This book is a queer, cyberpunk Ocean's Eleven style heist set in a futuristic Hawaiian inspired world and I had SUCH a good time reading it.

Prepare to fall in love with these characters and the world they live in. Despite taking place in a world with high tech body modifications, all of these characters feel realistic and relatable. Their concerns and motivations mirror those many readers will have, making them so easy to root for. I wouldn't say this is as warm and fuzzy as most found family tropes, but the vibes are definitely there. Found family but 2/3 of the family doesn't know how to express their emotions so they just do their best cuz they really truly do love each other, even if they don't know how to show it. Ditto on the romance, but I was here for it.

I also really loved the worldbuilding. I've never read speculative fiction rooted in Hawaiian culture, so this immediately felt very fresh and new and I fell for it hard. The little bits of language and dialect give such a strong sense of place. The details surrounding foods and social customs were the icing on top of what's already a rich, vibrant world that I would eagerly read about again. Add in the fact that this entire world operates outside of hetnorms and gender binaries and you've got a real win.

In addition to the fast-paced action and dramatic character development, the author also manages to take a solid look at social issues like classism, the poverty to prison pipeline, and the desperate things people will do when they feel trapped. In a bizarre way, it reminds me of the contestants on the show Squid Game - desperate people in helpless situations willing to risk their lives just for a chance to climb out of debt or make a better life for their families or afford necessary but unaffordable medical care. Take those same concerns and that willingness to risk it all and you've got a solid idea of what lies at the core of this book.

A fantastic debut featuring a richly detailed world, characters I'll miss hanging out with, an action-packed heist, and even a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance. Highly recommend. Can't wait to see what this author writes next, but I know I'll be buying it.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for an ARC in exchange for review.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A sci-fi heist with a fun team and some emotional heft, Hammajang Luck is a good read if you want something super queer about stealing from the super rich.

I'm glad the jacket copy provided the finition of Hammajang! It borrows from the Hawaiian pidgin, which if you don’t know, is a language created between two peoples who don’t share a language - they take bits and pieces of both as it develops. Sometimes, it turns into its own language, but mainly, it’s used by both groups as a sort of pseudo-language. Some cultures develop to speak them as their main language, which is so interesting to me.

Anyway, this book includes a bit of that in dialogue between two characters, but it’s easy enough to follow and quite minimal.

The characters are the focus of the story, and it’s told in first person by Edie. At first, I wondered how that was going to work with the heist aspect, as the best part of heist stories is how it all fits together with people doing different tasks, but the way it is shown is clever (generally through descriptions of video feeds or via dialogue) but also because the story is less about the heist than the characters and found family aspect.

The story does suffer a little from pacing. It takes awhile for it to get the team gathered and the heist to actually start, but that did give us time to understand Edie and their background.

Yet, one aspect that needed a bit of bolstering was Angel. I found it hard to understand why Edie seemed unable to just drop her, and her dilemma around their friendship could have been broadened.

The other characters were fun, but they could have used a few more scenes devoted to them for me to really grow to care about them on a deeper level.

Yet, the world-building is easy to understand and picture. It’s a dystopian corporate world where the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. It’s also about gentrification, technology, and family ties. It’s not exactly cozy but it’s also not dark. It’s like Ocean’s 11 if everyone were queer.

Anyway, read this book if you like:
Stories where nearly everyone is lgbtqai+
Heists where taking the bad guy down a notch is almost better than the money
Cultures adapting to diaspora and that diaspora being in space!

This book is many things: a heist novel; a romance; a found family narrative that doesn't skimp on the blood family ties; and all of that in an SF setting, Kepler Station (a location never clearly defined, but definitely far, far away from Earth). The heist plot feels very heisty: mastermind Angel has a plan to steal tech from her unscrupulous employer. She's put together a dream team of specialists, and her first recruit is MC and POV character Edie. Edie has just been released from prison, and they. have a complicated relationship with Angel... because Angel is Edie's first love, first partner in crime, and the reason Edie has just spent 8 years in prison.

The SF here is used with a deft touch: we know this is set in the future and on a space station, but the year and location are never specified. It feels like a near future dystopia. The issues Edie and their family and friends face are things like paying for medical treatment (Edie's niece has cancer, and while cancer has been cured in this future, the treatment isn't free) or finding jobs that aren't soul sucking.

For me, the really interesting part of the book is in the characters' sense of identity. Edie is part of the Hawaiian diaspora, as are many of the residents on Kepler Station. Much of their dialogue is in Hawaiian pidgin, lending a sense of authenticity and depth to the characters. (Also super fascinating and led me down several research wormholes!) Edie is NB and many in the heist circle are LGBTQ: Edie and Angel revolve around each other with simmering sexual tension; the team's "grifter's" are a devoted sapphic couple; their "muscle," Cy, is trans. The way these overlapping identities are woven into the narrative, matched in the overlapping genres of the book, make this a unique read.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

This book was actually pretty hard for me to rate. It was advertised as Oceans 8 meets Gideon the Ninth, and I go feral for anything Gideon related. Sadly, this was misleading, and it was absolutely nothing like Gideon the Ninth. But let’s get into it.

The good: the characters are SO lovable and cute. I loved Duke and Nakano, and I thoroughly enjoyed the main character. The writing was great, and the plot was enjoyable. I liked seeing every step that it took for the heist to be successful, and seeing the different roles everyone played.

The bad: this book was SO. SLOW. Like, nails on a chalkboard slow. As someone with very bad ADHD, it was a chore to push through even though I enjoyed it. The villain was cartoonish in nature, and I never really bought him being some kind of mastermind. I wanted to slap Angel. I had a really hard time visualizing the world-building— but I think that is a personal issue more than anything. The author was very descriptive, I just couldn’t comprehend it.

Overall, it ranged somewhere between 3-3.5 stars. I’ll keep it at 3 I think? Again, I had a hard time rating this. The ending alone was 4.5 stars, but the first 4/5 of the book were a solid 3.

You know what? Hell yeah!
I don't read sci-fi very often, but I found this a refreshing take on the genre, featuring a voice not often found in trad pubbed spaces. Yamamoto features an incredibly diverse array of characters, making for a fun and compelling take on an exciting heist tale in outerspace!