Epub file on my kindle corrupted (lost old one and had to redownload everything from Amazon) so am unable to access - thank you for the opportunity.

Nearly a four for me, as it wasn't without annoyances, but the sheer fact that I wanted to keep on reading this book made me give that star back. I thought it well represented the reality, the tedium and restrictions that such a journey would produce, and the ending was refreshing, so I look forward to any sequels.

I recently bought a new kindle after my old one broke. For some reason I was unable to download this title from the cloud onto my kindle, therefore I will be unable to review this title. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused

Hmmmm. I'm not sure how to review this book :-\

I loved the concept and it has some brilliant, thought provoking, parts to it, but I struggled to stick with it in places.

The book touches on mental health issues, but they are cast in a negative light; bringing to mind antiquated institutions. While this is fine in the right context, I just felt like it was used as a blunt instrument and could have been researched and delivered more thoroughly.

All that said, I think this book could certainly open the door to the sci-fi genre to younger readers.

I'd like to thank the publishers for allowing me try to read this book via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review

While I'd hoped to get through this book in January, I'm quite pleased with how little time it took me to finish it. It's been a while since I read anything from the Science Fiction genre and this was a read that Netgalley approved for me a while back in 2016 so I'm pleased that I'm finally getting round to reading those older approvals. I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot as well, and the genre change felt very refreshing for me in a lot of ways.

Let's start with the good, because there were a lot of positive elements to this book. Firstly, I really liked the world-building. A lot. Ling had clearly really thought this through: an expedition from Earth sent out to find a new planet. A round trip that's due to take 500 years and so REQUIRES a multi-generational crew, a 'breeding' programme and a cap on how many people can actually have children. With an opening that starts with the funeral of the last person who had seen or lived on Earth on the ship, there's little room for love on this ship. And while there are some obvious sci-fi tropes here, the idea of this world really impressed me and felt fresh and exciting in a way that I hadn't expected. Ling tells a good story too, with a solid, well-paced narrative and finds the perfect mix of action, emotion and information without clogging the story too much with one particular aspect.

For me, there were a couple of obvious flaws with this book which stopped it from being an amazing reading experience. Firstly: the romance. While I appreciate the introduction of a different culture in Dom, Seren's love interest, there 'spark' was the literal definition of insta-love. They just SAW each other and that was that. 100% completely in love. I didn't buy it personally and while I got that Seren had a lot of doubts before Dom, I think Ling definitely could have slowed that one down. Secondly, Seren is not necessarily a likeable heroine. I enjoyed the story from her POV and liked Dom a lot but felt that while I agreed with what she said (especially regarding Pandora...ugh), I couldn't get attached to her and it was easy to see why no one took her seriously. In some ways, I liked Ezra MORE than her, but his sudden decision at the end seemed to go against everything that Ling had built him to be from the start of the book. Still, this was a great start to the series and I'm hoping to see some announcements regarding book two soon. I think things will get even more interesting then!

I couldn't really get into this book, despite my best efforts. The main character bugged me from the start, and there were some issues I had with some of the details in the setting of the book.