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A review by hayleybeale
A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson
3.0
Noa had gone to bed in Seattle and wakes up...in an astronaut’s suit outside the spaceship Qriosity which, he is informed by DJ, another mystified teen, is about to explode. Ricocheting from one crisis to the next, Noa and his new friend DJ, learn that they’re stuck in space with no way of getting back to earth.
Later Noa finds a girl, Jenny, locked in a bathroom and the three of them have a series of episodic adventures including battling an Alien-esque monster, getting stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque time loop, and Noa’s descent into apathy and depression. Through it all DJ nurses a crush on Noa, which Noa, suffering from a traumatic relationship on earth, is unable to return. But then they come across a high school in outer space and things get really weird.
This odd mix of science fiction, homage, and space soap opera didn’t quite work for me. While I enjoyed some of the individual episodes, I wasn’t particularly gripped by the overarching mystery and while the resolution was clever it came out of nowhere.
I did appreciate that Noa and DJ’s relationship was completely normalized and while Noa is a bit of a pill for much of the time, DJ and Jenny more than make up for it.
I’d certainly recommend this to teens who like wacky adventures, but I’m not sure I’m inclined to seek out any more of Mr Anderson’s novels.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the digital review copy
Later Noa finds a girl, Jenny, locked in a bathroom and the three of them have a series of episodic adventures including battling an Alien-esque monster, getting stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque time loop, and Noa’s descent into apathy and depression. Through it all DJ nurses a crush on Noa, which Noa, suffering from a traumatic relationship on earth, is unable to return. But then they come across a high school in outer space and things get really weird.
This odd mix of science fiction, homage, and space soap opera didn’t quite work for me. While I enjoyed some of the individual episodes, I wasn’t particularly gripped by the overarching mystery and while the resolution was clever it came out of nowhere.
I did appreciate that Noa and DJ’s relationship was completely normalized and while Noa is a bit of a pill for much of the time, DJ and Jenny more than make up for it.
I’d certainly recommend this to teens who like wacky adventures, but I’m not sure I’m inclined to seek out any more of Mr Anderson’s novels.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the digital review copy