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A review by mepresley
Light from Other Stars by Erika Swyler
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was a lovely book, centered around love, loss, grief, and space travel. We have a dual timeline, with parts of the novel taking place in 1986 and other parts taking place in an unspecified year sometime in the mid- 21st century .
Our main character is Nedda Papas, 11 years old in 1986 when The Challenger explodes. Nedda lives in a small town, Easter, and in the wake of The Challenger explosion, weird things begin happening in Easter: with the sky, the weather, the water, the roads, the orange grove.
Nedda's father, Theo, an ex-NASA employee, has been researching entropy, and the machine he built, Crucible, turns out to be at the center of Easter entering what the book refers to as a sinkhole of time. Nedda and her mother, Betheen, come together to reverse the effects of the malfunctioning entropy machine, though Theo is sacrificed in the process. Once Crucible is destroyed and Easter is released from its time bubble, the residents find that 50 years have passed in the outside world in what was only a few days for them. The people of Easter are dubbed The Gappers.
In the other timeline, Nedda is aboard the spaceship Chawla, one of a four-person crew headed to a new planet to colonize and save the human species. The ship is having technical issues--energy spikes from the life support system, Amadeus, which are resulting in excessive radiation the crew is dumping in their landing water. If the crew is unable to fix the issue, they will never reach the new planet. Nedda realizes that the problem is just like what happened with Crucible--in fact, Amadeus was developed by Theo's friend and ex-colleague, using Theo's research--and is able to make the necessary repair.
Our main character is Nedda Papas, 11 years old in 1986 when The Challenger explodes. Nedda lives in a small town, Easter, and in the wake of The Challenger explosion, weird things begin happening in Easter: with the sky, the weather, the water, the roads, the orange grove.
Nedda's father, Theo, an ex-NASA employee, has been researching entropy, and the machine he built, Crucible,
In the other timeline, Nedda is aboard the spaceship Chawla, one of a four-person crew headed to a new planet to colonize and save the human species. The ship is having technical issues--energy spikes from the life support system, Amadeus, which are resulting in excessive radiation the crew is dumping in their landing water. If the crew is unable to fix the issue, they will never reach the new planet.