This is one of the best first contact novels I’ve read in a very long time. It’s unique, thought-provoking, and utterly brilliant.

This isn’t a book filled with detailed descriptions of the technology that made contact with alien life forms possible. This isn’t a dramatic tale of human survival when faced with an alien threat.

Instead, this is a quiet, contemplative story that asks what interacting with something alien could mean for our humanity. How might that change us?

At 250 pages, this has a perfectly-paced balance between plot and existential questioning. I haven’t stopped thinking about this book since I finished it a few weeks ago, and I’m looking forward to reading whatever this author writes next.

It was good! Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

The idea is really cool! I love a space travel stories and I love aliens, so why not both at once? I loved the world-building of what life in the zois would be like. My absolute favorite thing about this text was the way that this could have easily been a straight horror novella were it not for the framing. The idea of something changing your thoughts and body in a way that you can be aware of but can't do anything about is deeply frightening to me. The book could have leaned into that, but it didn't. There's more of a sense of tension throughout like that produced by the membrane of a zoi, that for me was often accompanied by dread, but could come across in a different way to another reader. Structurally, the alternating current day and past chapters worked well enough, though it did tend to make the present day chapters feel a bit out of place, making it difficult to track what had changed during the chapter breaks. I think there's an argument to be made that this highlights themes of isolation throughout the work, but it also confused me, so *cinema sins ding*.

The characters were less great; I never really felt like I got to know anyone particularly well beyond broad personality types. This is a novella, so that comes a bit with the territory, but I've read novellas with better characterization.

Overall, fun read! Love a fresh take on space exploration and first contact.

Great Sci-Fi read. Space, alien first contact and very intriguing development of the plot. Really enjoyed for probably 90%. The end didn’t intrigue me quite as much as the bulk of the book. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Sci-fi for cellular biologists! (and everyone else, too)

What if our first contact is with a giant amoeba-ish being moving through space? How might we engage with such a cell? How would the cell engage with us? What if we went inside? Zoi offers us this thought experiment.

Jane Mondrup’s thoughtful sci-fi novel is reminiscent of “old school” sci-fi, where the story focuses more on “what ifs” than the logistics of space adventure, and where the “real” issues at play are so very human. Zoi definitely aims for the Ursula Le Guin / Octavia Butler vibes.

Clearly written and insightfully balanced, Zoi is one of those books where the ideas will stick with you for a long time. I loved Zoi and would happily read more from Jane Mondrup.

after reading the synopsis, i thought i'd give it a try since it sounded intriguing.

the characters were just okay, i didn't particularly root for them or felt anything towards them, but i could relate to amira for the fact that she didn't want kids and instead had other goals in life. i was glad she stuck to her desires.

the writing style was easy to follow and understand despite it being set in space and having biological terms at times. it was really easy to grasp it.

honestly the idea itself was fascinating, i don't think i've ever read anything like this before but then i don't read too much sci-fi. however, the story did lose me 2/2 part of the book. it just became monotonous and boring.
it was also strange how the crew got used to this particular phenomenon so quick and without question when it initially happened. they literally accepted it no problem lol. you kinda had to suspend your belief there.

i mean, it was a little strange one, but not mind blowing or anything. i could see this being an average sci-fi book to avid readers of the genre.

A thought-provoking and truly wondrous first-contact novel. This is the kind of science fiction I’m always looking for—the direction I wish the genre as a whole would go. Jane Mondrup brings together genuinely science-based world building with the imagistic, impressionistic approach to story and character so popular in literary speculative fiction—something like if Julia Armfield expanded a Ted Chiang story into a novel. Written in prose that mostly doesn’t call attention to itself, the beauty and strangeness and heartbreak-hope of this book really snuck up on me.

So many science fiction novels and stories combine high concept settings with familiar kinds of human relationships—parents and children, romantic partners, friendships, coworkers. Those kinds of relationships are here, certainly, but so are some very different kinds of human relationships—relationships mediated by an alien presence into something uncanny and familiar-strange. The emotional climax of Zoi involves a whole tangle of these science-fictional relationships, relationships no human has ever experienced; it is intensely real and dreamlike and moving, despite and because of that strangeness.

When I finished the novel yesterday, I thought it was very good. But the more I think about it—about the deceptive complexity of its emotional structure; about the layering of ideas (about science, medicine, family, the body, free will); about the many scenes and images that feel as vivid to me now in memory as they did when I was actually reading them—the more impressed I am.

Wow, what a space journey. Zoi is about an astronaut Amira and her fascination with zoi, a cell-like alien organism that travels through space. I loved how the chapters alternated between the present and past. It gave me more insight on Amira and how she ultimately made the decision to become a lifelong resident in a zoi. I admired Amira's determination and how she never gave up on her dreams, even when her family were pressuring her into motherhood. Overall, an enjoyable read of space and wonder.