This book had many of the keywords I love in book descriptions; retelling, sapphic, sci-fi. Therefore I was really looking forward to Over the Moon, unfortunately this story missed the mark for me. I did not connect with characters or the retelling. Overall this was not the book for me.

Strong start.

°Space planet
°Strong, likeable female lead
°Adorable robot sidekick

Then part way through, I learned this is an odd, sci-fi Wizard of Oz retelling.. with other story elements.
I'm not one for retellings such as this so that is where the book lost me.

DNF 30%

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

This book was cute but didn’t quite stick the landing. I liked the scifi concepts but it felt pretty forced when trying to adhere to the original wizard of oz plot lines.

This was a solid read. It wasn’t what I usually read but though it was still really good and will recommend to friends.

Queer wizard of oz but a space opera! i was asking for this E-ARC before i had even got pass that!
this book is the perfect mix for using a well know story and taking it to a new place, the plot was well thought out and flow natural and in a way that dragged you along willingly

yes it was predicable in places but even with those moment there was enough twists for you to be like "WTF" and it balance the book out so well and Dora was a character that could have become hated but how they grown make you happy you stayed until the last page

3.5 stars, rounded up

First of all huge thanks to Sea Breeze Books and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of the book in exchange of a honest review. All thoughts are my own.

So, the moment I first saw this book I was sold. Sapphic romance? Wizard of Oz retelling? SCI-FI? Yeah, many things I liked mixed together. It was really fast paced at the beginning and I was reading this book before going to sleep and first thing in the morning and just eating it up, I do admit that it went a little slower around the 50-60% of the book but it soon picked up better. AND THE LAST PART OF THE BOOK? I was just trying to understand what was happening with so many plot twists all over the place.

But first thing firsts, what is Over the Moon about?
Our main character, Dora, is a fabulous engineer who is living in a small moon with her Auntie, her Uncle and her little cousins. However, she's an illegal clone of princess Jo'Niss, so she's not allowed to leave the moon. That thought scares her, Dora wants to live, go to university, explore the universe, create more droids and AIs, but she can't, because if she goes out of that moon she's most likely to get killed.

Of course at some moment she tries to escape but if I tell you more details about that it would be a spoiler so read the book and find out for yourself.

One thing I really enjoyed is the annoyance to lovers with the main pairing, and the found family trope in this book, is really simple to pass the time but it transports you to another world. I really think people should give it a try.

Surprisingly, I quite liked this book.
Another Wizard of Oz inspired title, Over the Moon does justice to its inspiration while staying original. Each character is a unique take on the Oz characters we learned to love as children. They are whimsical and crafted with far more depth than the originals. The world itself is unexpected - a mash of fantasy and science fiction elements that should not work, but in an outlandish way they do.
Don’t miss out on this unexpected gem.

Wow, I have a lot of complicated feelings about this one. Let’s start with what I liked: the characters. Dora was frustrating at times, but I liked that Crow was curmudgeonly and Nekkam was a fiercely loyal flip flopper and Nemo was the glue that kept everyone together. What I didn’t like: the pacing was all sorts of weird at the end; it all felt very rushed and a bit heavy handed. There were also some major issues with the plot, namely when it came to the Technowizard. I also reeeeally struggled with the fact that Crow and Dora seem to be loosely related, yet Crow is Dora’s love interest? Oof

This book was okay... it wasn't the best but none the less, I still enjoyed it and it kept me engaged the whole time. I feel like it didn't pull me in as much as I wanted to. The plotline was unique and something I'd never really read before.

I really liked this! It's pretty fast-paced and I enjoyed the story. The characters were interesting too.

OMG this book was so so good! I loved it so much! It was so fun to read and so different to other books out there.

⭐⭐.5

S. E. Anderson's Over The Moon takes the reader on a queer sci-fi adventure retelling of The Wizard of Oz. While the premise made me excited to pick this book up, the execution left something to be desired. The pacing started off well, with political drama and that sci-fi goodness I always crave, however after the first few chapters - when the retelling really comes in - it felt disjointed, as if I began reading a different book all of the sudden.

One of the book's saving graces was the character Crow. To me, she was the only character who was really fleshed out and was given a personality. Maybe it's just my soft spot for grumpy femmes with a heart of gold, but I digress.

Another little annoyance for me was the inconsistency of language used to curse. We're given the curse of 'slag', which Dora uses a lot. it replaces words such as 'fuck', 'shit', 'damn it', and so on. Later on, we have Crow using those original curses and no acknowledgment from either character of the way the other speaks. Expanding on the use of different slang and language could've helped make the world more immersive for the reader and add to the lore, but alas.

Between retelling a story and telling a new one, this book sadly failed to find a nice balance. I still think it was entertaining, but it just fell short for me. If you want a very fast, non-complex queer sci-fi adventure, I would recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this book exchange for an honest review.

Over the Moon is a ya sci-fi Wizard of Oz retelling which ticks all the boxes. This book was better than I expected it to be considering the genre this retelling was in (how was traditional Oz supposed to exist in a sci-fi adventure?). But it worked! Very well in fact. I loved the cast of characters and the found family style that developed from it. This book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'm definitely going to have to keep an eye out for the next one!

This was a NetGalley review.

So much fun!!
Loved all the Wizard of Oz references but all made sci-fi with space travel, genetic clones, galactic royalty and robots.
The whole robot engineering also seemed really interesting to me and well researched.
Honestly I cant to see what happens next!

Over the Moon by S. E. Anderson

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC ebook for an unbiased review.

This is a YA book that is a retelling of The Wizard of Oz, but as a queer Space opera.

This is the sort of book had I read it in my teens, early 20's, I would have so grateful for it.
Yes, it has obvious connections to The wizard of Oz, but the world building and overall plotline were fantastic. The depth SE Anderson manages considering it is a retelling was surprisingly effective.

Some of it was predicable, yet there were also moments that weren't. Not at easy balance to strike. I think that's what the book managed best for me. Balance. It had Dora in a situation that could easily have become a bit of a a trite or hackneyed plot, and it became neither.

This was engaging, vivid, with a gentle balance of queer romance dropped in.

Overall a very satisfying and satisfactory read.

5/5 stars 🌟

A quick bug bear/rant: This is a wizard of Oz retelling but in space, which I probably wouldn’t have picked up (because I’m not keen on WoO personally) but the blurb I read when I chose it said nothing of this. However the Goodreads blurb has it everywhere so I think I was miss-sold it and I am not sure if that has tempered my feelings. Anyway, on with the review!

The first portion of the story I absolutely loved, I thought it was different and a great start into a sci-fi romp. Dora is an illegal clone hiding out on a distant planet from those who would hurt her given half the chance.

I thought it was going to be her finally leaving the planet and having an adventure whilst escaping the fuzz etc. but shortly after I realised it was starting to sound very much like the wizard of Oz. Cue me going to check the blurb (but this time on GR) and realising that’s what it was. Now if it was a sprinkling of the original story I would have much preferred it however the similarities were so strong in some places I am surprised they weren’t done for copyright.

Unfortunately for me this then made the rest of the book quite predictable and my interest started to wane.

The good parts: I really enjoyed the world that the author built I just wish more of the story took place in it.

For those who like it there is a grumpy/sunshine love interest in there.

The ending: it came away from the WoO and again was some great sci fi storytelling I just wanted more of it.

I liked the book but I wouldn’t pick it up again, however if you like Wizard of Oz then for sure gives this a go!

I received an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book. I didn't hate it, either, but it was just .... boring. And considering that it's about a Sci-Fi world where the rich still secretly genetically create their babies and then kill the failures and our protagonist is one of those fugitive failures who survived, that should be possible.

But it's Wizard of Oz. Which I didn't know when grabbing the title, and probably would have deterred me from it. Not a fan of the movie. Not a fan of the Wicked retelling. Not a fan of Gregory Macguire's whole Wicked-verse. And I was not a fan of this. Once it establishes the science fiction element, it follows the original WoZ plot pretty closely, which for fans might be fine, but for someone hoping for something a bit different was boring.

read it all, but wish I'd DNFed ...

The description screams that this is a STEM book and the sudden request of this book is out of my mind! RTC

Thank you to NetGalley and Sea Breeze Publishing for giving me an e-arc of this copy! I’ll continue to review later.

I was initially very excited by the idea of a sci-fi Wizard of Oz retelling, since I’m a huge fan of both sci fi stuff and the musical Wicked. But, this book has all the hallmarks of a book trying (and failing) to tread the line between complex science fiction and 14yr old relatability.

It has its merits, but there were so many little annoyances that added up to an unenjoyable reading experience. Instead of swearing, the protagonist says ‘slag’ every other page, which I’d argue is much worse than just,, saying fuck once or twice. I don’t know how it wasn’t flagged up at any point that in British slang ‘slag’ means ‘slut’. But then, later in the book, other characters just start swearing normally?? So what was the point in replacing swears??

Other than that, there were too many characters for any of them to be properly fleshed out, and there were several plot points (especially towards the end) that were unexplained and way too convenient. It seems to be setting up to be a series, or at least a duology, but I don’t feel compelled to find out how the cliffhanger is going to be resolved.