DEEP SKY by Yume Kitasei

4.5 stars

This great debut novel focus on the near future where our planet faces a complete climate crisis, and a billionaire recruits international teens along with funding from all major nations for a space expedition to bring humanity to a habitable planet. In what feels like an academic and training hunger games with candidate daily ratings, hundreds of potential teens get whittled down to 80. The nations providing the funding getting to pick their delegations. The teen delegates get sequestered to an abandoned small liberal arts campus for their teen years, and powerful friendships as well as enemies form.

Asuka, our half Japanese and half American heroine raised in the United States, competes for a position on Japan’s team. Her Japanese Mom, a climate activist, deeply opposes her going. And humanity seems split on those dedicated to trying to fix Earth and those giving up. Asuka ends up getting selected as a last-minute substitute for a girl who dropped out of the flight, and unlike others gets trained as a generalist to sub in for others during the mission instead of being a specialist.

Controversial issues thread their way throughout the plot: all the women on the flight are expected to bear children from a sperm bank to jumpstart populating the new planet; ramped up geo-political war on Earth between China and the U.S. spills onto the nation-based crew and their two ship leaders who represent each country.

Midway through the space journey, a deliberate explosion kills three members of the crew and knocks the spaceship perilously off course. Asuka, who witnessed the explosion during a spacewalk to identify an unknown object on the outside of the ship, sets out to as the generalist find the saboteur.

Suspects emerge and revelations abound, pulling you into the hunt for the bomber as well as the plight of the ship given its off-course heading.

Looking forward to reading more from Kitasei!!

Thanks to Flat Iron Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Stacy DeBroff

Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central.com and social and digital consultancy, Influence Central, is a social media strategist, attorney, and best-selling parenting author. A sought-after expert for national media, she trend-spots regularly with national brands and speaks frequently to national and international audiences on a wide range of subjects, including influencer marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and consumer trends. A passionate cook, gardener, reader, and tennis player, she adores this new chapter of post-college-age parenting.