Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I found the set up of the book very unrealistic which kind of turned me off. But the last half of the book was a great mystery and had me hooked.
172 Hours on the Moon (good grief, that's going to get annoying to write out over and over) is like the movies you don't notice at the cinema. You know, the ones your eyes just gloss over as you scan the posters for the latest tentpole blockbuster or the indie film that's got critics raving. They typically feature old action stars who're only in it for the paycheck. If, for some reason, you do go to see one of those movies, you'll find a plot that's serviceable but not really very interesting and characters that are thinly sketched out and have no life outside the events of the story. Such movies aren't really regrettable experiences but, like myself after finishing 172HotM (much better), you'll be wondering if you couldn't have been doing something better with the time
Johan Harstad has written just such a book, except this one shows his love for sci-fi B movies (including a moment that's surprisingly Event Horizon) and The Martian. NASA has been struggling for years trying to get funding after the American public lost interest in space travel, and have decided very ingeniously to send three teenagers along with a team of astronauts to the Moon as a publicity stunt. They greenlight this mission despite being fully aware of a mysterious threat haunting the secret NASA base there. There are a few pertinent questions that come up as the book sets up its premise: how is this a good idea? When did NASA build a secret Moon base? How have they been hiding it? And why does no one find the sudden reveal of a secret Moon base that's been abandoned since the 70s a little curious? 172HotM is not the kind of book to, like, try to come up with answers to such questions. It wants to put some damn teenagers on the damn Moon!
The teenagers, and indeed the entire cast of the book, are utterly forgettable despite the first half of the book focusing on their backstories (they're really annoying, too, which is something Harstad got right about teenagers, I guess). This makes it a little challenging to take any of the Moon spooks seriously, but like I said, this isn't the kind of book where you take anything seriously. Curiously, the novel side-steps all the common elements of YA fiction, but it doesn't replace them with anything, leaving behind something that's a little boring
Despite the problems I wrote about above, the book went down pretty easily. The prose isn't anything mind-blowing (something does seem to have been lost in the translation from Norwegian), but it keeps things simple and easy to follow. Horror things happen, but they're not too scary, no more so than a crazy car chase or gunfight and about as enjoyable. This novel works great in audiobook form, since you can easily zone out of it and not feel lost when you bring your attention back
Before I go into the conclusion, I want to complain about the cascade of twists at the end. Twist cascades annoy me very much. There are at least five points in the final moments of the book where the story could stop and have a decently good ending, but it just keeps going because Harstad had some great ideas for the Moon spooks that he didn't get to use anywhere in the actual meat of the story. In general, I feel like we learned about the Moon spooks at a very odd pace, and the twist cascade could easily be avoided if the information was parceled out a bit more sporadically throughout the entire length of the book. The final few chapters were really the only time I felt anything about 172HotM, and that feeling was mild annoyance
I'll end this review by comparing 172HotM to something else: a bowl of white rice. It doesn't taste like anything, but it's easy to eat and you won't be hungry after you're done
Johan Harstad has written just such a book, except this one shows his love for sci-fi B movies (including a moment that's surprisingly Event Horizon) and The Martian. NASA has been struggling for years trying to get funding after the American public lost interest in space travel, and have decided very ingeniously to send three teenagers along with a team of astronauts to the Moon as a publicity stunt. They greenlight this mission despite being fully aware of a mysterious threat haunting the secret NASA base there. There are a few pertinent questions that come up as the book sets up its premise: how is this a good idea? When did NASA build a secret Moon base? How have they been hiding it? And why does no one find the sudden reveal of a secret Moon base that's been abandoned since the 70s a little curious? 172HotM is not the kind of book to, like, try to come up with answers to such questions. It wants to put some damn teenagers on the damn Moon!
The teenagers, and indeed the entire cast of the book, are utterly forgettable despite the first half of the book focusing on their backstories (they're really annoying, too, which is something Harstad got right about teenagers, I guess). This makes it a little challenging to take any of the Moon spooks seriously, but like I said, this isn't the kind of book where you take anything seriously. Curiously, the novel side-steps all the common elements of YA fiction, but it doesn't replace them with anything, leaving behind something that's a little boring
Despite the problems I wrote about above, the book went down pretty easily. The prose isn't anything mind-blowing (something does seem to have been lost in the translation from Norwegian), but it keeps things simple and easy to follow. Horror things happen, but they're not too scary, no more so than a crazy car chase or gunfight and about as enjoyable. This novel works great in audiobook form, since you can easily zone out of it and not feel lost when you bring your attention back
Before I go into the conclusion, I want to complain about the cascade of twists at the end. Twist cascades annoy me very much. There are at least five points in the final moments of the book where the story could stop and have a decently good ending, but it just keeps going because Harstad had some great ideas for the Moon spooks that he didn't get to use anywhere in the actual meat of the story. In general, I feel like we learned about the Moon spooks at a very odd pace, and the twist cascade could easily be avoided if the information was parceled out a bit more sporadically throughout the entire length of the book. The final few chapters were really the only time I felt anything about 172HotM, and that feeling was mild annoyance
I'll end this review by comparing 172HotM to something else: a bowl of white rice. It doesn't taste like anything, but it's easy to eat and you won't be hungry after you're done
Kitap hakkında ne diyebilirim bilmiyorum. Asıl konusu ayda 172 saat geçirmek olan bu kitapta aya gitmek kitabın yarısını aldı ve geri kalanı da oldukça aceleye getirilmişti. Korku elementi iyi işlenilmişti ama bence bu kitabı kurtarmaya yetmemiş. Geçmişe ara sıra dönerek daha karmaşık bir kurgu yazsaymış ortaya daha iyi bir roman çıkarmış.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
I don’t even know where to begin. So, so unbelievably bad that it’s genuinely funny 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
172 Hours on the Moon took a while to get going for me. Obviously the author has to give us background, set the tone. We have to get to know the characters. Set in the near future there is a lottery for three teenagers to go to the moon. Not alone, of course. With other, experienced astronauts. So Midori (from Japan), Mia (from Norway) and Antoine (from France) are picked. there are a few ominous warning signs but they go as planned. Almost immediately things start to go wrong, people start to die. It's fast paced after that. I was surprised at the ending. I really thought Mia would make it. But, that was part of the great ending. The element of surprise.