Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

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I don't think I really understood this book.

Normally, I love slow paced, character driven fare. My favourite books are Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy, I adore the slow, almost plotless works of SE Robertson, but this one just didn't land for me.

The plot is very simple - five teenagers and some adults are sent into space to travel to a faraway Earth-like planet. On the ship, they all start having breakdowns? Idk, it honestly feels like less of a plot, more just a series of vignettes. The space element feels almost secondary - I don't know if this story would be much different if they were going on some other far off trip.

For a book like this to work, the characters need to be solid, and unfortunately, these guys weren't. They were conceptually interesting, but their arcs didn't really go anywhere. There were a lot of 'oh look x is having a mental health crisis' only foŕ the character to be better a chapter later.

I think this book could have really benefited from a tighter pov focus and fewer characters. Five is too many povs too juggle for a character driven piece, and it never really felt like there was a protagonist or any driving arc. There was no real unifying theme beyond 'teenagers in space big uh oh' and honestly, it felt like it just meandered on for a bit until it ran out of steam an stopped.

Idk, this book was just kinda weird, and not really in a good way. It was technically competent, and I could see someone else loving it, but not really for me.

Rating: 2/5 Stars


Representation: POC main characters, mental health issues

Content Warnings: Eating Disorder behaviour and thought patterns, suicide (secondary character), intense depictions of mental health issues including depression, psychosis, panic attacks, and eating disorders, terminal illness

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