Carys and Max are floating in space, tethered to each other but headed straight for an asteroid belt. They will surely die because of misunderstandings and mistakes. In the future - a far, far distant future, apparently - getting married and having children at a young age is not valued. Independence and loyalty to one's self is. I admit I got a little confused with the worldbuilding. There were a lot of futuristic references here and there but not a whole lot of explanation and while that shouldn't be a problem in scifi (no one wants an info dump), you kind of need a few things to ground you. And many times I just didn't get it. I'm pretty sure it was just me. As much as I love scifi, I just couldn't follow this one. Wish I could have gotten more swept up in it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Really loved this book! It was an amazing, slow building book. The setting and circumstances in the story were very captivating, and I loved the unique ending.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book! It was refreshing to find a book that had a different take on society and the future that did not make it sound horrible. Carys and Max were a couple who belonged together and took steps to be that way, no matter what was dictated by society. Some of the ideas of society in this novel were incredible, but not so far fetched with the way our technology and nations are going. It was just an amazing story. The ending was a bit confusing though...almost a "choose your own ending" type of story, where the ending you want is not one of the choices...well done!

This book was set in a future dystopic world in which the male and female protagonists fall in love and pursue a forbidden committed relationship. The state in which they live requires young adults to rotate from one jurisdiction to another and not settle down, get married, and have children until older adulthood. The book begins with the couple lost and floating in space, with a limited supply of air to breathe before they die, desperate to get back to their spacecraft; then flashes back to the earlier time when they met, and alternates between this crisis moment in space and the developing story of how they got to that point, why they are together in space discussing and contemplating their history.

For me neither element of the book (love story/lost in space story) was completely convincing. I wasn’t drawn in by the characters enough to care about their situation, although I did appreciate the twist at the ending. I think the book succeeds less as romance and more on a philosophical level as an examination of how society places constraints on individuals.

I was not able to review on amazon yet but this novel took my breath away. Unique, well written with an ending thst was so umexpected. I really need more from this author. A true treat, and anyone who had ever met their soul mate will just "get" this book

I was given this book by NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. I really enjoyed thus book. Highly recommend.

Did not work for me. The first half gets one star. In fact, the first few pages are so cringey, I was tempted to DNF. Bland writing, under-developed characters, awkward dialogue, a romance with zero spark. I never felt any real connection between the main characters or believed in their relationship. The second half is better and it tackles some worthy themes, but there were too many eyeroll-inducing moments for me.

For starters, I couldn't buy into a "utopia" that completely disregards the value of love and human connection, or the idea that no one in three generations would have previously challenged the "relationship rule" that doesn't allow people to marry until their mid-thirties. The idea of six-year-olds living on their own is also preposterous. And the entire premise that sent Max and Carys into space in the first place was extremely flimsy. I don't buy that the leaders of Europia would not already be continually studying the sociological effects of such regulations, or that they would suddenly decide to do so based on the suggestion of one person. The world building is also inconsistent. The author repeatedly mentions oxygen-emitting hybrid vehicles (hybrid of what is never actually explained), and yet no one has thought to do away with disposable coffee cups with cardboard sleeves. Little details like this throughout were jarring. Why is Carys's mom sanding the floors in her apartment when supposedly all of the older buildings have been completely modernized?

And let's talk about the oxygen situation. Max and Carys supposedly have 90 minutes of oxygen after they have been separated from their ship during an EVA (extravehicular activity). First of all, they would have been tethered to the ship. Duh. Second, oxygen isn't measured in minutes. The amount of oxygen a person uses is dependent on their metabolic rate and other factors. So they would have had more or less time remaining depending on how much oxygen they used, which would have changed their individual chances of survival.

TL;DR: super fluffy writing, inconsistent world-building, implausible plot with scientific inaccuracies. It tries to examine some weighty issues about life and love but the weakness overshadow the message.

A beautiful, tragic love story set amongst the stars.

What a wonderful book! I fell in love with it within minutes of reading about the relationship of Carys and Max. With an interesting premise, you don't always find that characters are well developed and luckily this book did not fit this traditional mold. I felt like the story was gripping and exciting and the author still found time to make her characters relatable and full of humor. This also isn't your typical sci-fi, utopian thriller. Really I felt like the sci-fi element took a back seat which will help boost readership by folks who wouldn't typically pick up a book about space flight and futuristic societies. Even my saying that this bool has these elements may turn readers off initially, but let me stress that this book really is a love story that happens to take place in the years ahead and part of it does take place in space. But the futuristic society hardly differs from current times with the exception that they live in a society where many problems have been eradicated. The space element occurs only in that the two main characters are piloting a space craft in order to solve a problem which is threatening the Earth. This isn't a strange book where we have flying cars in a world where we don't have jobs and live normal lives. There are no aliens and certainly people still live as we do.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The ups and downs Carys and Max face are challenges many couples face. There are certain restrictions places on their coupling in that this society has determined that the proper age for marriage is 35, so when Carys and Max fall in love when they are 25ish they cannot legally marry. They can be together, but must wait according to the laws. They face other challenges, but the love they share is stronger than most. I urge my readers to pick this up!

This is one confusing review for me. I preferred reading about the time spent on Earth rather than in Space, but at the same time the story wouldn't have worked without it. Maybe the parts in space could be cut down smaller? The ending was also a bit of a difficult one. You see Carys and how she is afterwards but then you get the shock that not all is as it seems. Then you have the part with Max, which I actually skipped and didn't read because I thought it was obvious how it was going to turn out. I think you should just have gone with the actual ending, or used the part before where Carys has her hallucination and then saves Max due to it. It would have had a much more emotional impact on me as a reader. I did enjoy it though - it was a slow beginning but by halfway through I was hooked. It was the miscarriage that really pulled me into the story.

Sorry but no, I couldn't stand the immaturity and unrealistic characters.

Ok, I don't do romance or dystopian novels but after being told Hold Back the Stars is a must read and I would love it, I thought go on then why not!!.
Meet Carys and Max, tethered together in space, they have only 90 minutes of air left with rescue an impossibility, their ingenuity and determination the only way they just might survive.
So, how did Carys and Max find themselves in such an impossible situation? As their air supply decreases our knowledge of their story increases.
Living in Europia, a society created as a result of war, people live according to a set of rules and guidelines.. You cannot just fall in love, or form a relationship until later in life, until society deems you are ready. Your are separated from your children as you each live a set amount of time in differing places or voivodes . But what if you believe that this is not the life for you, that you want to settle with the one you love now, not when deemed right by others??
This is Max and Cary's dilemma, and when they decide to make their feelings known and seek a change they become an experiment, an experiment that finds them tethered together in space with only 90 minutes of air.
A novel that is certainly not just a love story, but a novel that challenges what love is, not just between couples but that of families, and friends. It challenges society, mixing what may happen in the future with elements of the present, making the story and particularly those of Carys and Max believable.
As the air in their oxygen cylinders diminishes, their closeness and love grows and so does our investment in them. What is going to happen will they both survive or are they destined to die together amongst the stars.
Khan keeps us guessing right until the end, the tension mounting and I found myself turning the pages faster to learn the outcome.
Have your tissues ready because this is a novel that is going to pluck at your emotions, as it did mine.
Thank you so much to Joanna Park for the recommendation and to Netgalley and Transworld for the opportunity to read and review.