Ugh. The only reason I finished this was to see if the ending would make some kind of sense. It really didn't. So many plot holes, so much bad science, so much narrative discontinuity, too many characters whose reaction to their situation made no sense. Honestly, three teens out of millions of entrants are to be chosen to go to the moon, and not one of them really wants to go? The whole thing was just one disappointing page after another. ( )

Star and a half for the intermittent paragraphs of dread that occur. Why send teens to the moon? I could not get past this. America wouldn't do this. They don't even send civilians anymore, I think, and I think they might even not send -people-, but satellites. I had to suspend disbelief to read the book, and it was so hard. Pages of the book are dedicated to Mia's love of music. That does not help me get into a book about moon travel. Mia doesn't want to go to the moon, and her parents basically force her to. Suddenly she's okay with it due to being in proximity to a hot guy. It could have been written much smoother than it was. Mia lives in Norway and remarks that teachers must be teaching from lesson plans a hundred years old. In the USA, the -methods- of teaching are based off something that old, but the plans themselves are more modern. Midori is annoying and majorly conceited.

The photorealistic illustrations were interesting. The training requirements for the teens were provided in a huge infodump about ten percent into the ebook. It needed to be spread over the first half of the book, and: show don't tell! Antoine engages in stalking and voyeuristic behavior towards his ex. The paragraphs of slow dread sprinkled throughout the book would be great if they weren't so boring. In between all the world-building infodumps, Midori tells a ghost story about a woman with a mutilated face who asks "Am I beautiful now?" after she takes off her mask. That caught my attention, here in this pandemic. The dread shows up again close to page 200, when the power fails. I was intrigued. The book went back to boring soon after. A hundred pages from the end, the book becomes delightfully scary. A conspiracy theory was made out of Apollo 13 and the phrase, "Houston, we have a problem." I was annoyed. ( )

Im a little confused by some of the goings on in this book, but it was very effective as a horror story. Creepy AF. I listened to it while staying somewhere with a full length mirror in the hall opposite the bedroom door and would freak myself out whenever I walked out into the hall and saw myself standing there in the dark. ( )

This has got to be one of the scariest and most surprising book I've read to date.
Harstad's book made me question everything related to space.
I won't give away any spoilers but one thing I am sure: I'll never think of the Moon the same way...

( )

Meh. It's a decent premise and fairly well executed, but it's a bit slow. And as an adult sci-fi reader the twists were a little too telegraphed. I still think it would be a good fit for some of our teens: it's got creepy urban legends, feisty characters, and a resolution that will probably work for lots of them. For me, the ending had the same holes that I disliked at the end of [b:Allegiant|18710190|Allegiant (Divergent, #3)|Veronica Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1395582745s/18710190.jpg|15524549] where it wasn't actually explained how Mia got replaced in the capsule. UGH. ( )