Space sci-fi is one of my favourite genres so I always feel excited to read a new one. I was aware of this for ages before I read it, and by the time I did, I ended up really loving it! The book follows six teen astronauts who have been training for their entire lives, preparing to embark on an incredible journey. They'll be heading out on a 23-year to reach Terra-Two, an inhabitable planet that could become a new home for the human race. But it doesn't take very long for things to go drastically wrong...

As a lover of character-driven space novels like Becky Chambers' A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, I really loved the focus on the characters' lives and backgrounds, and how they all made their way onto the program. I really felt attached to some of the characters. It felt a little long in places, but once I got to a certain point, I flew through it and I thought about it for ages after I finished, which is always the sign of a good book.

This was a brilliant read and only just narrowly missed out on a place on my absolute favourites shelf! I love a good isolation storyline, which this promised and delivered on, alongside a fantastic story. It has a spark of adventure and hope, alongside a touch of drama and a nice YA quality that is made more complex than the usual with the near future aspect. Another reviewer described it as character-driven rather than action, and I think that's what I love about it so much - the characters really make this something special against a unique backdrop. Highly recommend!

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I'm not sure what I was expecting with Do You Dream of Terra Two? but I think this book managed to both meet my expectations and be a completely different story to the one I thought I was getting.

Terra Two is about a group of young adults who head off to space towards a new Earth-like planet that they're planning to live on. They're leaving their lives behind and travelling for around 23 years, living only with each other and senior members of the team in that time.

This sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing I enjoy, although I think most of my enjoyment would come from the events after landing on the planet, which isn't really what this book is about. That said, I still really enjoyed reading about these characters as they came to terms with (or not) what they were leaving behind and what they were about to go through.

This book covers a short period of time, comparatively. It's not about the whole 23 year journey, as it only really covers the first year of trials and struggles. There's a lot of talk about mental health, which I am glad about, because too often books show people going off on space adventures without a care in the world. I did find it a little bit unrealistic that there were issues with every single one of the characters, but perhaps it was more realistic because they're in a heightened environment. Plus, they're all still quite young and barely had time to figure things out. Anyway...

Despite what the blurb says, I wouldn't really say this is much like The 100. It's more like Across the Universe (anyone remember that?) but with slightly older characters.

Some scenes had me on the absolute edge of my seat. Space stuff tends to freak me out, and possible explosions and collisions in space freak me out even more. Understandably. I felt very claustrophobic throughout most of the book, so I think the author did a really good job creating an atmosphere there.

This is a very character focused book, and I think some people may be put off by that. However, I think the author's writing style lent itself perfectly to the type of book it is, and I appreciated getting a glimpse into characters who were going through all of this.

I really liked this one. While it's not an all time favourite, I do hope that the author continues to write similar sci fi books because I like what they're adding to the genre!

A coming of age scifi book, one where the characters really felt like the central focus of the story. I felt it built really well but dipped around the 50-70% mark. Not enough plot to really push this story forward.

It's so hard to rate this book. At times I really hated it. The pacing wasn't always good, during the middle we had so many boring flashbacks... and also, I hated most of the characters.
On the other hand I really loved the themes and the story as a whole. Training those kids from age 13 to 19 to become astronauts and leave to another planet could sound like a good idea if you don't think about it too much buuuut it's actually terrible and this book showed it very well. The repercussion on these teens' lives, and especially on their mental health was really well done and thoughtful.

A few things didn't make sense (like how the adults were basically useless. That there were only 3 of them to begin with? Or how they fired the mental health professional the day before the launch?
And I disliked the fact that this was happening in 2012. I never really understood why the author decided to go for this and not like 2040 or something.

Also I just wish the ending would have been more.... I won't say excatly what because spoilers. But "more".

But anyway... I didn't enjoy my read that much but I overall really liked this book...(it doesn't make sense for me either) I think I just really like stories focused on mental health. And in some of those themes this story was really well done.
I do not know how to rate this. I guess somewhere between 3 and 4...? So yeah it's a 3.5 but I have to put 4 here because half stars don't exist.

TW : suicide, drowning, bullying, parent neglect, a lot of mental health issues, especially depression and hallucinations

Absolutely adored this book. A thoroughly intriguing and unputdownable debut book! A definite must- read.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


I was so excited about this book going into it; space training, a mission to a new planet, comparisons to Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series. However, this turned out to be one of the most disappointing books I've ever read.

There were so many aspects of the book that I felt let down by but I will concentrate on the most prevalent issues in this review.

My first and most irritating issue were the characters. The science fiction books I like not only have scientific elements that are rooted in reality but the astronauts themselves are realistic. The characters in this book, that were apparently chosen to be on a space ship to a new world where they would be in close proximity for over 20 years, had so many issues that should have disqualified them from the programme. There were power issues, depression, grief, eating disorders, and childish rivalries, all things that in a contemporary novel would have been interesting to explore, but in this context, it made the characters feel completely out of place. I understand that these characters are very young and therefore will make mistakes but these are twenty year old people with years of training behind them and they didn't feel like it. They came across as very troubled fourteen year olds.

The other major issue that I had with this book was the pacing. There was no action until about 75% through and then the ending felt really rushed. I think the  idea was to build up all of the characters before putting them in tense action-packed scenes but unfortunately the characters were so poorly developed that it just meant that the majority of the book was slow.

I'll be honest, I would have put this down near the beginning but I spent the whole book hoping it would get better so ended up finishing it. As this was a novel I was really looking forward to, I'm so disappointed having to give it a negative review but I think it was just really messy and I wouldn't recommend it.

1 out of 5 stars!

So I am sad to say that this novel has been sat on my Kindle for sometime. I really enjoy a sci-fi novel, but will often pick up another genre over it. I have no idea why I do this, given the fact that I enjoy them once I get started!

Do You Dream of Terra-Two is a novel that explores the possibility of space travel and where it can take us. It is not however a dystopian novel, and I must admit that I probably chose to read it because I thought that it was (or at least an escape from a dystopian world). Whilst it was not the novel I thought it would be, I was not disappointed.

Harry, Jesse, Juno, Astrid, Aria, Eliot and Poppy are our teenage astronauts, graduates of the highly esteemed Dalton Academy, whose sole purpose was to pick the crew for the first space mission to leave earth in order to inhabit Terra-Two, a far off planet which was believed to be a close match to Earth. Each of these individuals were chosen not only for their intelligence, although this was an important factor, but also for their perceived strength and endurance for a mission from which they would never return. Due to the lengthy journey, it was deemed necessary to have a young cohort of astronauts for the mission alongside their more experienced counterparts. They would effectively be trained on the job, trained to take over from their senior officers who would probably be too old for leadership roles in the latter stages of the journey or once they reached Terra-Two.

This novel is very much about the journey. The journey to Terra-Two, the journey to adulthood, the journey to self-discovery. These teenagers were chosen as young children, chosen for a mission that could possibly be the most important mission in Earths history. They were taught and trained in ways that many couldn't even imagine. All of this impacts on each of them in different ways, as they continue to ensure that Terra-Two remains their one and only focus in life. As they are hit by tragedy before even taking off, as well as changes to their senior crew at the last minute, this mission is fraught right from the beginning. It would be wrong to tell you all that this is a novel about space travel though, because it isn't. It is first and foremost a novel about characters, and how they develop when forced into close quarters in what is not a normal situation. These individuals are not allowed to grow up or even make mistakes in the way that normal teenagers do. These individuals all experience loss, love, belief and belonging whilst in the confines of a very small spacecraft, on a journey that will take them 23 years.

This is such an interesting exploration of how different characters react to different extreme situations. Despite such diverse backgrounds and upbringings, they are eventually forced onto an equal footing, and watching how they each deal with it is fascinating. Temi Oh really captures each of them beautifully in my opinion, and I am very pleased that I picked up this novel and gave it a read.

I really enjoyed reading this, and I am more than happy to recommend it to you all. I look forward to seeing what Temi Oh brings us next!

I really enjoyed this book. Like all good sci-fi/speculative fiction it addresses some very serious questions through an enjoyable story about space exploration. There were issues of consent, relationships, self-discovery, and sheer bloody-minded survival. The scene-setting and background were well drawn, and there was a great sense of reality to it all.

While I really wanted to love this book, it just didn’t do anything for me... maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it.

This was really hard work with far too much descriptive detail and very little happening.
The characters did not interact very well within the story or create any emotional interaction with me.
Unfortunately I found this boring in extreme.

Absolutely adored this one. Great sci-fi drama with a cast of compelling characters. Will be looking out for a sequel.

I really enjoyed Terra Two, it was a book of three parts, the build up of them going to space, the journey, and what happens next. I must admit having LOVED the first two parts, the third part wasn't as enjoyable. The plot didn't flow as well and maybe the whole atmosphere changed. The ending was not what I had hoped either. However, it was an enjoyable, fascinating read and I felt like the author wrote it intelligently.

This month when choosing an ARC to read I picked the oldest book on my Netgalley list. I’d kept putting this book off due to the sheer length of it: 528 pages. But this book really sucked me in so I didn’t notice it’s length after a while (even though it took me a week or so to read because it is definitely a tome).

Usually, I am not a fan of character-driven novels, I prefer something with lots of action and world-building. But this book contained all three so I was instantly interested in it. I also found myself really enjoying the character driven plots in this book, which is rare for me, as I was genuinely interested in all of them.

This book is told through many point’s of view. We see through the eyes of all of the six ‘Beta’ who make it on to the expedition to Terra-Two. I really liked that aspect of it, as it gave the story so much depth. You can really see Temi’s background coming through in this novel as she really knew what she was talking about. Her studies in the philosophy of the mind, neuroscience and space physiology made this book so realistic and believable. Because of this, the book is quite scientific and philosophical at time but I enjoyed that a lot, I love a science fiction so much more when it’s based in real science, and there were so many great philosophical statements in this that I found myself highlighting a lot of the e-Book.

Every character in this book is three-dimensional, there’s no good, and there’s no evil, everyone has a combination of everything inside of them. And the storytelling is so satisfying, the way it unfolds had me gasping in shock and wonder at times. Jesse by far was my favourite character by far, but I also really enjoyed Juno and Elliot’s point of view chapters too.

Every character had their own quirks, their own problems and their own deep-rooted motivations and I loved watching it all unfold.

But it wasn’t just about the characters to me, the tale of travellers moving through the stars on a journey further than anyone had ever travelled before to found a new land for the good of humanity. It was one of the best exploration and discovery novels that I have ever read.

I would have given this book five stars as I thought it was brilliant. However the scope of the story was too big to fit, even if the book was a tome. There was a lot of build-up and because of that, even though I loved how the book resolved, it did seem a bit rushed and out of place. The last quarter of the book especially felt a bit rushed with less character development, and I think i would have preferred this book to be a duology to give it the space it deserved.

But that’s the only fault I could find in this book. If you are a die-hard science fiction fan like me, then I urge you to read this. It’s been a while since I’ve read a science fiction book like this, and in my opinion it echoed the classics that I read when studying science fiction at university. I think this book is going to be a favourite of mine for a long time.

I enjoyed Do You Dream of Terra Two? but it was a very different book to what I expected. There were many moments throughout the book when what I thought would happen next wasn't. It's not what I'd call a rollercoaster of a book, but it's definitely one where there's no point in even trying to guess where it's going.

Almost a week after finishing reading it I still can't decide if I liked the way it ended and whether or not I want there to be a sequel (because a part of me really does want to read more of these characters and this universe and another part thinks that might ruin the magic of a brilliant book). I'm worried saying that makes it seem like I didn't like the book as a whole. I did, I really loved it.

The setting/timeline of this book is a really clever idea. It's set in London 2012. It's the London we know - famous landmarks are mentioned and the Olympics are about to happen as it starts. The characters eat Galaxy chocolate and watch University Challenge. But it's also not the London or the 2012 we know because space travel (and therefore technology) is much more of a thing so it;s all a bit different and just brilliant.

I am really keen to see what Temi Oh writes next.

I really, really struggled to connect with this book. Although the concept of an interplanetary journey staffed by teenagers due to the length of transit time was interesting, unfortunately I felt that it bogged the book down in teen psychology and muted the actual space aspects. Most of the teens in the space program were almost sociopathic in their dedication to their goals, and were very hard to like - there wasn't a single character that I could identify with, as they continually showed no compassion to each other and failed to think about their impact on the team. I like YA, so this isn't exactly a problem with the ages of the characters - it's more that you could have removed the space setting and plopped the characters in any competitive environment, and they would have behaved similarly. This is a book that hinges on character exploration, not action or world-building, and since I didn't like the characters, that made it hard for me to like the book.

Not enough sci-fi, too much moping - for me, anyway.

There is nothing wrong at all with this book - it just couldn't hold my attention. I read around 20% before calling it quits and those took me months to get through. I found the narrative tone too juvenile; it reads like a YA novel and as such is sure to appeal to lots of other readers. I am not in a good enough reading mood this year and I have too much going on outside of my bookish life to continue reading books I am not enjoying.

This is one of the best sci-fi books that I have had the pleasure of reading and I can’t believe that this is a debut novel as the writing in this is so good. This novel follows a group of 10 astronauts who have been picked as the first people to travel to Terra-Two, the first habitual planet found in the universe. This is a slower paced novel and is very character centric which is what I loved most about this novel as you get to see just how much of an impact this journey has on this journey.

Overall, I love this and gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

a wee summary

In an alternate version of history, Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is the story of a mission to begin the colonisation of a planet just like Earth, Terra-Two.

We follow six young adults, each of whom have been through rigorous training, interviews, and testing at an elite school since the ages of 12/13. They have beaten off their peers to earn a place in the UK Space Agency’s Off-World Colonisation Project.

The project sees the six young adults (Beta team) accompany experienced astronauts on a one-way 23 year trip to Terra-Two. The (by then) middle-aged Betas will be the first to set foot on the plant. Each will use their areas of expertise to help to prepare Terra-Two for future arrivals from Earth.

It’s 2012, before the London Olympics, when the shuttle is due to launch, headed for the pre-built Damocles spacecraft which will be their home for the next 23 years – 23 years where they are alone should anything go wrong.

my thoughts

When I first started reading Do You Dream Of Terra-Two? I must admit, I was expecting action. I soon realised that’s not what this tale is about, and when we were still on Earth by page 122 I realised I had to cast aside my own expectations.

Temi Oh has written a sci-fi tale that I’d describe as more character-driven than action, for the most part.

It’s a slow burner, that tells the story through the six members of the Beta group, each of whom has their own passages and chapters.

Through this style of story-telling we get to know more about each character; what has driven them to this point? why do they want to leave Earth forever? what do they leave behind?

Slowly the reader uncovers more information about these six youngsters, who aged 12/13 signed themselves up for the program that ultimately brought them to this point – pre-launch, with the eyes of the world upon them. Of course, once in space we examine their characters further!

Once I’d cast aside my desire for action, I really enjoyed this more character-driven aspect of the story. I will admit though that I was longing for action before we finally got some about 75% of the way through the book.

The action, when it arrived, was brilliant and I really enjoyed it. Having spend so long with the characters, I felt so invested in them all when the action finally came.

I felt the alternate history worked really well, with Temi Oh tying her tale to events that we are familiar with – such as the 2012 London Olympics, the media frenzy around the launch being something we can all imagine.

Oh’s writing is beautiful. I really liked her style, descriptions, and word choice. It’s hard to fathom that someone can write so beautifully in a debut – I can’t wait to see what she brings us in the future.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing and getting to know the characters but I did find this a rather slow read. That said, it’s beautifully written, thought provoking, and certainly memorable. It hurt my heart, and has given me even further respect for astronauts!