Review: Highly self-centered and myopic, verging on psychotic narcissism. That is the MC condensed for brevity's sake. Every frikin' page is this HUGE lament on her: life, abandonment, social interaction, people’s opinion, self-loathing, self-gratification etc. etc. When you are self-aware that your actions harm yourself and others, at some point you get better at pulling yourself out of detrimental emotions, rather than have them ruling your daily existence. She talks to herself about how bad this action is going to be, then goes ahead and does it. Riiiiight. She is constantly: limping, bleeding, aching, crying, sleeping, exhausted, dreaming or digging. As a reader, you get no breaks as well.

If you can wade through pages of self-recriminatory drivel, the world building and REAL story line is intriguing enough to bear witness. The characterization was limited in scope, especially the supporting roles. You just didn't care what happened to any of them. "Oh gee, we lost a crew of five. Time for a new crew assignment". Since the character depth is meager, it begs the point that the plan was to write them out anyway. But why not give it all in that short space, to build the best character that people will miss?

I like this world. It is creative and echoes Anne McCaffery's, Crystal Singer. The MC is insufferable in presentation, but you root for her, despite her dumb choices and lack of perspective.

I received this ARC for an honest review.
4.0/5

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own :)

This is a tense, dramatic sci-fi set on a penal colony on the moon, following Young, a former trainee Pomp (these specialists who remotely lead mining teams) who washed out due to a mental breakdown and attempted suicide. Now, she’s just a miner, stuck in a cycle of work that will never pay off her debt and hallucinations that leave you questioning what’s real. Is she mentally ill or is there a conspiracy here? As an unreliable narrator, she keeps you guessing—but also I found her absolutely exhausting.

Young is a deeply flawed character in a way that really works for the story. Dystopias should mess people up, and this book actually shows the weight of trauma rather than giving us another protagonist who’s weirdly just fine despite a horrific backstory. That said, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who isn’t feeling mentally strong - it goes to some dark places.

For me, the book felt a bit repetitive up until about the 2/3 mark. Young cycles through the same routine - sleeping with Gyu, going to work, and then having another minor psychotic break. While the mysteries surrounding her past, her abilities, and the colony kept me going, the pacing dragged at times. But the last third? Really rather exciting. The payoff for the side plots came together in an exciting way, and the story finally hit its stride. The main story is left on a slightly hopeful note which is always nice in a dystopia.

This book is heavy, tense, and packed with high-stakes drama. If you like slow-burn, particularly bleak sci-fi and protagonists who actually feel the weight of their world, I do recommend this. Just be prepared for a bit of a slog before the real payoff.

Trigger warnings include suicide, mental illness, trauma, hallucinations, and generally heavy dystopian themes.

I don't have too much to say for this one. It was good and fun. I thought the world building was neat (loved the idea of a tidally-locked planet, very fun for a guy who grew up on that episode of "The Universe" where they explained what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning). I really loved Young as a protagonist, and Dong does a fantastic job of getting you inside her thought process and making her decisions understandable, even if you are on your hands and knees begging for Young to maybe be a little less self-destructive. She never felt unintentially whiny to me.

I was really impressed by Dong's ability to keep the narrative tense, which was absolutely critical for this to work even a little bit. The reader needs to be kept unsure of the reality of the situation, even when there are a couple of facts about the situation that they're going to grasp well before Young is (e.g. her parents did not just abandon her, she isn't having random hallucinations) due to genre and narrative conventions. If not, the whole thing becomes a slog where the reader is waiting for the point-of-view character to play catch-up. Fortunately, everything worked great here! I'm a seasoned sci-fi/fantasy reader, and I could guess what was getting put down by the blurb, but I still felt like I was getting through for a loop just as hard as Young was. The text did a wonderful job of getting the reader just as confused as Young often is, yet when Young really gets in the zone and feels good, you can feel that ease in the prose as well. It's all very well done.

My only complaint is that the ending was rather rushed and a bit too ambiguous for my taste. It doesn't ruin the whole experience, but I would have liked a little more time on the last events in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dark Matter INK for the ARC!

I understand that this is reality for a lot of people, particularly poor and/or marginalized people who are penalized for their mental health issues instead of treated for and assisted with them, but Young as a character in a fictional dystopian world is exhausting. There are so many interesting tidbits we cautiously extract between the waves of paranoia, self-doubt, and erratic behavior - about the world, about Young’s past, about the roles of these prisoners in their strange society. But so much of it is buried that the book feels so much longer than it is. This is a short book, but even curiosity couldn’t keep me pushing through it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publisher for the arc!
Oof. This hit way way WAY too close to home, and it’s too real. This is something only people in a decent mental state with a decent foundation should read. I could not handle this right now. This is obviously personal.
I do also think this book was stream of consciousness to the point of near and at some times, incoherence. That’s all I got, folks