Book Review: Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Do You Dream of Terra-Two by Temi Oh

🌺🌺🌺.5

Terra-Two. A planet just like Earth. Habitable. Sustainable. A new beginning. And about to be colonized by six teenagers and six adults, who will launch into space and travel twenty-three years through deep space to reach their new home.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. And I did like it.

However, I felt like there were some serious issues with the book that could have been resolved with some heavy editing/pacing adjustments.

I loved all of the space stuff. The preparations to go into space, the competition, the well thought out physiological and psychological adjustments and issues of going into space, and the dangers of space travel and space exploration. This was also an alternate history (which I love) and I was super duper intrigued to see where the timeline was the same as ours and where it branched off (people in Mars! people around Europa! actual space travel past the moon!).

But.

The middle draaaaaagged on and on and on. I felt like it could have been trimmed substantially. But I also am not a huge fan of slice of life stories that are all about documenting trivial things (like Poppy’s long bed stays) where I felt disconnected from characters who didn’t feel fleshed out. This is also why I didn’t like The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, so if you enjoyed that book, then this might be a good one to pick up as well.

And that ending.

WHAT was that ending? Did I miss the last chapter or two of the book? After reading about every bowel movement and each bedridden day and thirty hours of pilot simulation training, I wanted more of the excitement that was happening in the last ten percent. I NEED IT.

But then again, sometimes the idea of something is enough.

I guess.

Anywho, the last thing that I was not thrilled with was the lack of real fleshing out of the characters. We have six points of view, and all feel more or less pretty similar (minus Harry. Harry is just a colossal douche), and all teens have an Issue of some sort.

But that was just the Betas, who are 18-20 (classifying this as more New Adult than Young Adult IMO). There is Super Duper Pooper verrrrry little actual adult oversight from the um, ADULTS. The adults who I suppose just do their own thing in their own section of the crew and don’t ever question when Really Fucked Up™️ things happen. Like, never question. Just praise on how ~good~ their kids are (until two decide to take matters into their own hands and complete the mission).

If the Betas aren’t very well developed (despite a bajillion pages devoted to their woes and hopes and fears and seriously wtf Astrid), the Seniors are even less so. They are names on a page, with specific quirks and not much else.

However, despite the lack of character development, I did absolutely ADORE the amount of diversity within the crew. Yay! And the idea that space and new beginnings wasn’t just for the chosen few, but an option for everybody (this was a topic that was mentioned but not explored much). I did want a little more exploration of what the diversity and the selection of teens and Seniors meant based on the later revelations in the book, but that was not forthcoming. Just an ending that felt very rushed and unfinished.

Anywho, this was a solid space book about space travel and long journeys, and that part I definitely did enjoy.

Definitely something for fans of both The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and The 100 (things I did not enjoy but also understand why others like them). This feels like a perfect mash-up of the two.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? released 7 March 2019 from Simon & Schuster