Our readaloud lately is What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy, and it’s pretty much exactly the right blend of funny, smart, and exciting. Rosa, Eddie, and hundreds of other science-smart teens are hoping to get into a top secret NASA program, but the competition is stiff — and the program comes with plenty of hazards, too. I feel like this is kind of a stealth book right now, so get it at the library before other people start discovering it and the hold list gets crazy.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

I couldn’t really get into it. Just not for me. I usually like competetition stories but this one just didn’t draw me in like i hoped it would. :(

3.5 stars.

thanks to the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did not enjoy this as much as Learning to Swear in America (which I really loved), but it was still decent and interesting.

basic plot: teens are going to save the world from some unknown disturbance being monitored by NASA.

this calls for some suspended disbelief. like, majorly.

200 high school juniors compete to join a NASA team of two? sure.

the anomaly in space can't be solved by scientists with multi doctorates or engineers or, you know, anyone else? nope! only a couple of teenagers will cut it.

luckily, they're teenagers with SARCASM. witty, even. but also bodily fluids to expend in the planetary defense.

I really did like a lot of the fun repartee. and their training master. And some of the competition tests. as I said, fully a decent book. anyone who liked Katie Kennedy's first should pick this up. anyone who likes YA hard science-fiction should consider picking this up. would recommend especially to ages 13-17.

What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy is a fun and fast paced read. This story takes place sometime in the future but there is never any specifics given. Wherever we are in the future, space travel has become extremely advance from where we are currently at today. The first part of this book is a lot of fun. I found that as you get into the second half, I slowly became bored. I enjoyed the challenges the kids went through and the fun witty banter is super entertaining. This is a cute read.

4.5 stars!

Last year, Kennedy’s debut <i>Learning to Swear in America</i> utterly charmed me. It was cute, funny, and driven by a strong first person voice. Add in some romance, and you’ve got a classic Christina book. <i>What Goes Up</i> has all those elements but ramps up the humor and gets even more science fiction-y. Pick this book up if you want an unputdownable, uproarious, action-packed delight. And, like, why wouldn’t you?

Unlike her debut, <i>What Goes Up</i> is in third person, but the characterization doesn’t suffer from the change. I fell in love with both Rosa and Eddie pretty much immediately. Trevor and Reg are pretty awesome too tbh. From the very start, I didn’t want to put this book down for a minute. It was very much instalove with this one.

<blockquote>“So, where are you from?”

She looked up. Of course he was talking to her. She chewed slowly, but he kept his eyes on her. “New Mexico.”

“But where are you from ?”

“A pleasant ranch house on Bayo Canyon?”

“Like, what are you?” he asked.

“Dude,” one of the others said. “She’s from New Mexico.”

“What am I?” She wanted to say, Smarter than you, or Not a jerk. Instead she sighed loudly and said, “I’m an American of French and Japanese descent.”

“Wow,” Ellis said. “Good combo.” She flushed. “Which half is which?”

Rosa stared at him. “My left side is French.”</blockquote>

Rosa and Eddie are two of two hundred applicants for a role within NASA’s elite Interworlds Agency, which preps for the day we discover other intelligent life in the universe. The book opens with the rounds of testing used to determine which teens will be made the third IA pair. Once selected, they’ll finish high school and college at NASA. The tests are by turns challenging, strange, and terrifying.

<blockquote>“People should exchange bacon at weddings,” he said. “Who gives a crap about rings? But if you’re willing to share your bacon—that marriage is gonna last.”</blockquote>

Though I should probably do a full review for this one because of how much I loved it, there’s a whole lot that falls into spoiler realms, and I’d rather leave all of that a glorious surprise, because this book is so much fun. I laughed my ass off through most of it, but it also gave me FEELINGS (poor Eddie, my baby) and ship (Eddie and Rosa are adorbs). It’s one of the most genuinely funny books I’ve read in YA, with everything from ridiculous knock knock jokes to toilet humor (but of a sort that even made me laugh) to situational comedy, I was grinning and giggling my way through <i>What Goes Up</i>. (Like, that whole scene where they go in search of tampons had me in stitches.)

<blockquote>“You think you’re embarrassed?” Rosa pointed past Eddie to Trevor. “He thinks my vagina wears a hat.”</blockquote>

For fans of Kennedy’s debut or Gina Damico, <i>What Goes Up</i> is absolutely not to be missed. I’d love more science fiction like this! If those interspersed quotes didn’t convince you to read this book, I don’t know what to do with you tbh.

This book keeps you engaged and on your toes. I read it in one sitting because I didn't want yo put it down.

WHAT’S TO LOVE:

STEM GIRLS. Girls who are smart, own their intelligence like a badge of honor, and are proud of who they are. Rosie is a genius and she knows it. She has worked hard to gain her chance at NASA and despite the claims that it’s because of her famous science-y parents, that’s far from the case. Rosie is a clever problem solver who has the quick wit and innovative mind to solve even the craziest of problems. On top of that, she’s one of the bravest, most selfless characters I’ve seen in a long, long time.

The adventure. From the elaborate mental and endurance tests to the actual high-speed chase and stealing alien aircrafts, it’s like those fun puzzle games that you can’t get enough of. It’s interesting, engaging, and definitely keeps you guessing. I loved all of the cool and creative trials the teens had to go through to make it to the final levels for NASA.

Diversity. Yes. Yes. Yes. A lot of diversity. Financial, LGBT, ethnicity. It’s all there and it’s awesome. I loved these characters so much. Initially, it seems like there will be more people involved but it truly comes down to only a handful and they’re all memorable, unique, and bring something great to the storyline. One of my favorite, favorite characters is Eddie’s grandma. The woman is an icon. Fierce, independent, innovative, and speaks her mind. She shot a rocket launcher off her roof, I mean, come on. Everyone has a story.

Romance is subtle. You kind of expect it, but it takes a while and it’s nowhere near a main arc, there are so many things that are much more important and the focus. Plot-driven.

It reads fast. It’s funny and so enjoyable.

QUESTIONABLE/SO-SO THINGS:

Quick resolution at the end. With Eddie and with the near apocalyptic, almost destruction of Earth 1 thing. While there are epic and action-packed scenes leading up to the ending, it fell flat. It was so fast. Yes, there are terrible and possibly deadly decisions and all sorts of scary things, but still, oh, this super death to all mankind crisis is never going to be seen again without absolute destruction of source? I don’t think so. And while I’m glad there was a happy ending, especially for Eddie, it was too clean.

There is an assault scene. I mean, it serves a purpose. There’s clear motive. It adds “excitement” to the first half of the book, but I’m not sure it was the ONLY option and it’s kinda traumatic. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to disqualify people.

It has been my experience that very few books actually live up to the praise heaped up on the back cover. I mean, even when the books are awesome, they're rarely just what that little blurb makes them out to be. However whomever wrote the one for Katie Kennedy's What Goes Up was dead-on. It is action-packed and it is wildly funny. In fact, it's directly responsible for keeping my child up an extra half hour past her hoped-for bedtime because we were too busy giggling at the knock-knock jokes. 

Rosa, Eddie, and the alternate are wonderful kids. Smart, funny, and brave, they are too good to be true, but given the type of book this is, they're absolutely perfect. Katie Kennedy hooked me with the humor in What Goes Up, but it was the characters who kept me paying attention. I couldn't help but cheer them on. Even the bald pickle-snapper who plays second violin to the teens. Is it realistic? No, not really. But it's a feel-good, laugh out loud book when you need one, and I wasn't aware of just how badly I needed one. 

Katie Kennedy's What Goes Up proves once again that a talented writer can mix comedy and science fiction and make a book magic.  I really had no clue where things were headed in this book, and had actually put off reading it for a while because I was afraid I was going to get a typical case of insta-love romance disguised as a sci-fi book. Because, y'know, it's a young adult science fiction book. (I would like to offer my apologies for that assumption to the author right now. But really, it's almost every other young adult sci-fi author's fault!) 

Full of action, snark, and think on your feet moments, What Goes Up is a fast paced adventure that begs to be read. From the moment Rosa's waiting for the future to catch up to her to the gold-plated finish, What Goes Up is a book worth reading. It won't appeal to everyone but it definitely has my seal of approval! I mean, I can't even think of a single thing I want to criticize and how often does that happen?

Are you looking for an adventure story battling alien life forms? This title involves a team of young people who set out to save the world and need to defend their own choices.

I just read WHAT GOES UP by Katie Kennedy which involves interplanetary travel and potentially deadly bacteria. Booklist suggests grades 8 to 11, but I am much more inclined to agree with the School Library Journal reviewer who suggests grades 6 to 9. I found the characters to be extremely immature (portrayed repeatedly as embarrassed by references to vagina, penis or tampons) and yet somehow they were selected and being trained to negotiate with Alien powers. That said, WHAT GOES UP is an action packed story with likeable characters, Rosa Hayashi and Eddie Toivonen, who come from very different backgrounds. If you are able to ignore any doubts about NASA’s willingness to allow 16 year-olds to pilot multi-million dollar space ships, this suspenseful, fast-moving adventure may be for you.

The competitions the teens went through were the best part of the book. It was fun to watch how Eddie and Rosa reacted and Trevor is a fantastic third-wheel. I really enjoyed the author’s Learning to Swear in America and once again, the author shines in developing interesting, witty, humorous and brave characters. Oddly, I’m fine with multiple universe theories but the aerial stunts, with teens getting in and out of moving aircraft, bother me. That’s minor though. This is a fun, engaging read and I look forward to more from the author.

I both loved and was disappointed by this book (though the love far outweighs the disappointment). The alternating point of view is strong. While the individual characters fall a little bit into cliche that familiarity of type works in the novel's favor. It helps that the ultimate aim of the novel is to explore identity and fate. Its really smart to have cliched characters questioning their roles, pushing the boundaries of what is expected of their personality types. And the actual line to line writing was tight and nearly blew me away. Some of those passages just begged to be shared, highlighted, contemplated. My disappointment was with some plot elements and a few of the characters. Those disappointments are easily overcome. A great book to read, reread, and share.

What Goes Up is such a fun YA sci-fi read. Rosa and Eddie are just two of hundreds competing to be a part of NASA's Multi-World Agency. From here, the suspense doesn't let up! These characters are in for an adventure. There is a great deal of humor, as well as plenty of action. I was on the edge of my seat with plenty of time for laughing. The characters are well-developed, strong individuals. All in all, a very fun read. Highly recommend readers of YA science fiction check this one out today!

What Goes Up, by Katie Kennedy, tells the story of a girl named Rosa Hayashi and Eddie Toivonen as they each attempt to become one of the two people that make up a new NASA team designed to explore and find aliens.

I’m not sure if the writing style is my absolute favorite, as the descriptive words are a little rare. But at the same time, those that are included are funny or metaphors I’ve never seen before, so I’m fairly impressed as far as those are concerned. I’m not someone who enjoys paragraph after paragraph of description, of course, but I do enjoy knowing a bit more about expressions or what the world/room/etc. looks like. It was also slightly confusing towards the beginning when the characters didn’t know each other’s names but as the third-person POV shifted to Eddie, for example, Rosa was still mentioned by name – and not because he’d noticed her, but because Kennedy chose to mention something about her.

Mixed in among the competition’s storyline, I found a great deal more humor than I expected, though it didn’t always land. Oftentimes, these competition-based YA novels are fairly serious, or based very heavily on romance. I appreciated the blatant references to things like children of multicultural backgrounds being asked “what” they are, for example, and how likable the main characters were, most of the time.

I didn’t understand some of the rationale of the characters or the way they spoke sometimes, but I’m chalking that up to the world-building and the potential that the book takes place at a different time. Sometimes things happened randomly and were never questioned or explained, and that really drew me out of the narrative.

Many of the plot points reminded me specifically of Veronica Roth’s Divergent, and because of the inconsistent characterization, I can’t give this more than 2 stars for the concept and fast-paced beginning, which is usually missing in books like this.

With What Goes Up, Kennedy delivers an action-packed thriller that will appeal to a range of readers beyond the expected sci-fi crew. The story is launched in the not-so-distant future at NASA headquarters; here, 200 teens are vying for 2 available spots. While reminiscent of Divergent and The Testing, What Goes Up propels the action with a faster speed; the challenges derived for these candidates are incredibly original, and because the characters are so well-drawn, it's impossible to not feel magnetized as the tests ensue. Neither their rigorous testing nor their comprehensive training could prepare them for what lies ahead. Fasten your seatbelts, What Goes Up will take you on a fast ride. Recommended for grades 8 and up. ~ ARC via Netgalley ~ Lisa Brennan, Middle School Librarian @noveltalk

I got to read an ARC of this book thanks to Netgalley, and I'm so glad! I'm an astronomy teacher & am always looking for books that my students can read and enjoy, but also learn. This book really fits that bill. I loved the characters, especially that the female characters were smart & strong. I thought the main conflict was an interesting take and I know my students would really enjoy it!