172 Hours on the Moon

Johan Harstad

Summary:

There’s a reason we never went back to the moon.

It was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. Mia, Antoine and Midori had different reasons to enter NASA’s competition of a seat on the first shuttle to go to the moon in over forty years.

But while they all wanted to escape earth, they never realized there might not be a chance to come home...

In One Word: Tense

Plot:

This was an intriguing story that had me hooked from the first page. However, as the story progressed I felt like there were some things that weren’t explained very well (Example: (possible spoiler) Why did they even send the kids up there if they knew about the dangers? I get that they wanted to investigate, but why the teenagers?). I also felt like the ending could’ve been better, (again with the spoilers), I expected the author to do something like he did, which meant that the shock-value diminished immensely...However, with all of that said, I couldn’t put the book down and it really was very interesting.

Characters:

My favourite character in this book is probably Antoine (mainly because I’m a hopeless romantic, also...French dude...), but I didn’t really feel connected to the teens. Yes I worried that they might be in trouble, and I was rooting for them, but I didn’t have a very strong emotional response to anything that happened to them.

Who should read this:

12+, mainly because it’s really scary and creepy, also some references to sex and some language. If you’re interested in space and conspiracy theories, then you will probably like this. If you want an exciting, nail-biting, quick read then I’d recommend this one. If you want a happy story then this is definitely not for you...

My rating:

The weird thing about this story is that it’s the technical aspects that bothered me the most (usually I can overlook it). I did really like the way the author added actual space phenomena and unexplained events to make the story more realistic, but I felt like I was left hanging at the end. 3.5/5

Quote:

‘You’re going to the moon! You’re going to the moon!’