Another super busy May Book Birthday! These books are all celebrating book birthdays today, which is fun, and also, they’re very space and/or apocalypse themed, yay!

Anna by Sammy H.K. Smith
Reset by Sarina Dahlan
Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston
How To Mars by David Ebenbach
The Apocalypse Seven by Gene Doucette

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Anna by Sammy H.K. Smith
Published by Solaris on May 25, 2021
Pages: 300
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

A chilling feminist novel set in a near-future dystopia, Anna explores the conflicts between selfhood and expectations, safety and control, and the sacrifices we make for the sake of protection.

Beaten. Branded. Defiant.

Anna is a possession. She is owned by the man named Will, shielded from the world of struggles by his care. He loves her, protects her, and then breaks her. Anna is obedient, dutiful, and compliant. Anna does not know her place in the world.

When she falls pregnant, Anna leaves her name behind, and finds the strength to run. But the past - and Will - catch up with her in an idyllic town with a dark secret, and this time, it’s not just Anna who is at risk.

This book is brutal, and uncomfortable, but also contains enough hope to keep the pages turning. (I’ll do a trigger warning up front that there is a ton of abuse, sexual and physical, rape and kidnapping, and it’s a tough thing to read, no question.) But I absolutely recommend it, if you’re able to handle the subject matter.

We meet the main character when she’s in hiding, trying to live off the grid, because society has straight up collapsed. She’s lost everyone she’s known, and is in the woods, alone and scared. Shortly after, she’s captured by a vile man, and she tells him that her name is “Anna”, unwilling to relinquish the rights to her true name. He will, over the course of the first third of the book, steal literally everything else from her; her keeping her name is one of the few things she is able to hold onto, and it is positively gut-wrenching.

I worried a bit that the whole book would be that way- horribly depressing and full of despair. But it wasn’t! I have seen some reviews that criticized the slower pace of the middle third of the book, but I positively loved it. “Anna”, as the synopsis will tell you, does manage to run, and reinvents herself as “Kate”. There are signs of hope and love at this point, where at the start I couldn’t see many. It’s the thought that there may actually be some decent pockets of humanity left that makes the story so full.

Obviously, things aren’t going to remain idyllic for the remaining two-thirds of the book, but to prevent spoiling anything, I don’t want to say much else. But from that point on, you can see glimpses that life can be more than what “Anna”, and so many others, experienced in the first third. That maybe, just maybe, horrible men like her captor won’t retain power forever. It’s a terrifying scenario that feels all too plausible, and the author does an incredible job of making the reader feel for “Anna”, want so badly for her to have a better life. My emotions were on overdrive during this story, and I felt quite glad I took a chance on it.

Bottom Line: Beautifully written in a nightmarish hellscape, “Anna”‘s story is one that won’t be leaving me anytime soon.

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Reset by Sarina Dahlan
Published by Blackstone Publishing on May 25, 2021
Pages: 500
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Can you love someone you don’t remember?

After the Last War destroyed most of the world, survivors form a new society in four self-sustaining cities in the Mojave Desert. In the utopia of the Four Cities, inspired by the lyrics of “Imagine” and Buddhist philosophy, everything is carefully planned and controlled: the seasons, the weather—and the residents. To prevent mankind from destroying each other again, its citizens undergo a memory wipe every four years in a process called tabula rasa, a blank slate, to remove learned prejudices. With each new cycle, they begin again with new names, jobs, homes, and lives. No memories. No attachments. No wars.

Aris, a scientist who shuns love, embraces tabula rasa and the excitement of unknown futures. Walling herself off from emotional attachments, she only sees relationships as pointless and avoids deep connections. But she is haunted by a recurring dream that becomes more frequent and vivid as time passes. After meeting Benja, a handsome free-spirited writer who believes his dreams of a past lover are memories, her world is turned upside down. Obsessed with finding the Dreamers, a secret organization thought to have a way to recover memories, Benja draws her down a dangerous path toward the past. When Metis, the leader of the Dreamers, appears in Aris’s life, everything she believes falls to pieces. With little time left before the next tabula rasa, they begin a bittersweet romance, navigating love in a world where names, lives, and moments are systematically destroyed.

Thought-provoking and emotionally resonant, Reset will make you consider the haunting reality of love and loss, and the indelible marks they leave behind.

The whole concept behind Reset is so thought provoking and unique! In the book, the powers that be wipe the minds of the citizens every four years, and they quite literally have to start over. Can you imagine? I had such a hard time wrapping my head around the actual horror of knowing that your life would end every four years. That everything you do during those four years is meaningless. Because not only do you lose your memories, everyone else loses their memories of you. So in a way, it’s a worse fate than death, since absolutely nothing you do will live beyond those years.

And it was, as such, the kind of book where you simply cannot help but wonder how you’d react. I decided that I would absolutely alternate between sobbing in the corner and drinking myself silly for four years straight. Luckily, this is not what our main characters choose to do. Aris believes strongly in the work that tabula rasa does, until she meets some people who want more.  Her friend Benja is the first to really open her eyes to the possibly of more, but it’s Metis, her lover from a past life, who seals the deal for her.

And now that these folks have had their eyes opened to what life could be, it’s quite impossible to go back to going along with the mind wiping. In their search for answers, they begin to uncover so many secrets, and glaring downsides, to the entire project. As they soldier on for more information, the book shifts from thought provoking and relationship focused to an exciting mystery and survival tale, while still keeping it’s emotive character focus.

Bottom Line: Fascinating and full of moral questions, I was quite engrossed in Reset!

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Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston
Published by Dutton Books for Young Readers on May 25, 2021
Pages: 256
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

A thought-provoking new YA space adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka.

Set on a family-run interstellar freighter called the Harland and a mysterious remote space station, E. K. Johnston's latest is story of survival and self-determination.

Pendt Harland's family sees her as a waste of food on their long-haul space cruiser when her genes reveal an undesirable mutation. But if she plays her cards right she might have a chance to do much more than survive. During a space-station layover, Pendt escapes and forms a lucky bond with the Brannick twins, the teenage heirs of the powerful family that owns the station. Against all odds, the trio hatches a long-shot scheme to take over the station and thwart the destinies they never wished for.

I do love me a space adventure, so I was so sure this was going to be a home run for me. But from the start, I just felt a bit underwhelmed. Much of the beginning felt like a bit of an infodump, and so my interest wasn’t really piqued at that point. Add to it, Pendt is just a very young child for the first portion of the story, and is being treated horribly (and in some cases, downright abusively), and you’ve got a story I was just not keen on.

The Harland family is awful, but like, so unbelievably awful (and to their own family, no less) that they became a bit like cartoon villains for me. Sure, it helped Pendt to escape by illustrating that there were definitely no redeeming qualities to be found among her kinsfolk, but beyond that, it didn’t really do much for the story. They’re clearly the baddies here, no nuance given. (And yes, I do realize this type of person exists in life, but still, does not a great villain make for me.)

Things did pick up a bit when Pendt managed to escape her family’s ship. And I did like the characters of Fisher and Ned, who Pendt meets upon her escape, but so much of the plot surrounding them felt quite convenient. So while I did enjoy the second half much more than the first, I still didn’t feel particularly pulled in.

Bottom Line: It’s not a bad book, but it really just didn’t draw me in at any point, nor did I find it particularly exciting.

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How to Mars by David Ebenbach
Published by Tachyon Publications on May 25, 2021
Pages: 256
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

What happens when your dream mission to Mars is a reality television nightmare? This debut science-fiction romp with heart follows the tradition of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, with a dash of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a hint of The Real World.

For the six lucky scientists selected by the Destination Mars! corporation, a one-way ticket to Mars—in exchange for a lifetime of research—was an absolute no-brainer. The incredible opportunity was clearly worth even the most absurdly tedious screening process. Perhaps worth following the strange protocols in a nonsensical handbook written by an eccentric billionaire. Possibly even worth their constant surveillance, the video of which is carefully edited into a ratings-bonanza back on Earth.

But it turns out that after a while even scientists can get bored of science. Tempers begin to fray; unsanctioned affairs blossom. When perfectly good equipment begins to fail, the Marsonauts are faced with a possibility that their training just cannot explain.

Irreverent, poignant, and perfectly weird, David Ebenbach’s debut science-fiction outing, like a mission to Mars, is an incredible trip you will never forget.

I am a huge fan of Mars mission fiction, I think. I loved a few shows I watched about “first humans on Mars”, and I found How To Mars utterly delightful, so Mars wins, I guess. In this particular voyage to Mars, we meet the gang when they’ve already been on Mars for a second, which was a fun change of pace. These particular Martians have signed up for a one-way trip, none of them having any particular desire to return to Earth. But as you can imagine, life in a very small bubble with just a few other people would have a tendency to have some rocky moments.

And when one of the group members becomes unexpectedly pregnant, things definitely will get shaken up! It’s a very humorous and engaging story. I loved the characters, and how much they came to care for one another, despite their differences. I also enjoyed the thought-provoking moments, the ones where I questioned myself, how would I handle any of these scenarios? Could I ever actually get on a one-way trip to Mars? Probably not, but as the story unfurls, you’ll see that each Martian has their own reasons.

There are also exciting moments of Mars adventure, even though it is absolutely more of a character driven book. The real highlight of the book for me was more how the group handled these various potential catastrophes- and how the Earth folks reacted as well. There are also excerpts from the handbook that the company who sent the team wrote- and frankly, they were hilarious and a quite welcome addition!

Bottom Line: A humorous yet heartfelt look at Martian pioneers, How to Mars won me over with its empathetic characters and entertaining storytelling.

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The Apocalypse Seven by Gene Doucette
Published by John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books on May 25, 2021
Pages: 432
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whatever.

The whateverpocalypse. That’s what Touré, a twenty-something Cambridge coder, calls it after waking up one morning to find himself seemingly the only person left in the city. Once he finds Robbie and Carol, two equally disoriented Harvard freshmen, he realizes he isn’t alone, but the name sticks: Whateverpocalypse. But it doesn’t explain where everyone went. It doesn’t explain how the city became overgrown with vegetation in the space of a night. Or how wild animals with no fear of humans came to roam the streets.

Add freakish weather to the mix, swings of temperature that spawn tornadoes one minute and snowstorms the next, and it seems things can’t get much weirder. Yet even as a handful of new survivors appear—Paul, a preacher as quick with a gun as a Bible verse; Win, a young professional with a horse; Bethany, a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent; and Ananda, an MIT astrophysics adjunct—life in Cambridge, Massachusetts gets stranger and stranger.

The self-styled Apocalypse Seven are tired of questions with no answers. Tired of being hunted by things seen and unseen. Now, armed with curiosity, desperation, a shotgun, and a bow, they become the hunters. And that’s when things truly get weird.

You know that feeling when you’re reading a really awesome book and you think “I could legit just keep reading this story forever”? That is me with Apocalypse Seven. Full stop, I did not want this story to end, yet at the same time I desperately craved all the answers! So I will try to break down what made this such a win for me!

• The characters were just so relatable. These folks are not the Katniss Everdeen of the apocalypse. They’re all bumbling, fumbling, and completely the same as most of us would be in their shoes. They panic, they cry, they behave exactly as you’d expect everyday people to. And eventually, slowly, they start to get the hang of surviving, but they’re not particularly tickled about it.
• The humor is so fun! Admittedly, a global apocalypse in which only seven people (as far as we know) have survived is… a downer. But the humor laced throughout this story was perfect. It was just the right amount of lightheartedness in between the rough stuff to make it so incredibly readable.
• There is a mystery- of the “what the heck happened here!?” variety. The characters are not only trying to survive. Once their basic needs are handled, they kind of want to know why the world ended, and why they, of all people, are the ones who survived. And I loved the way the mystery unfurled, giving us bits and pieces as the story went on- just enough to be satisfying without giving away too much.
• Mind. Blown. There were some incredible twists that just… well, like the heading suggests, blew my mind.
• Honestly it is just really enjoyable, entertaining, and well-paced. I had so much fun reading this book, and that’s that.

Bottom Line: So entertaining and engaging, I simply could not put this one down!

Have you read any of these books? Plan to? Let us chat about them!