First of all, what a beautifully written book. It has been a while since I've enjoyed reading descriptions of situations and feelings so much! The whole chapter 69 left me amazed and I just need to share it with you all. Even if you decide not to read the book, enjoy at least this marvellous chapter of it:

"Galaxies collide all the time, like cosmic car crashes. Even in the impossible vastness of space, the gravity of a bigger galaxy will pull a smaller one, suck in its dust and gas and its solar systems, absorbing them, morphing them. Over billions of years, at over one hundred kilometers per second: smash. I’m looking at images of these crashes on my computer when it occurs to me that we slam into people around us, invisibly, all the time. Through the things we say and don’t say. What we do and don’t do. That we are slowly changed by the constant bombardment. That we consume and are consumed, until we become products of our interactions, made of old and new parts, simultaneously broken and healing."

Beautiful, isn't it?

Even though this novel is over 500 pages long, it definitely didn't feel like it. The chapters are mostly quite short which I enjoyed immensely. That's the one thing I love about ebooks - you can see how many minutes it'll approximately take you to finish a chapter. With this book I finished one thinking I'd get back to work, but then came the next which was just a minute long one. So obviously I had to read that, too. So one minute became ten or more... Oops.

On a more specific note, I really liked all the characters in the book and how natural and honest it all seemed. A lot of the times dialogues can seem forced, but with this it definitely didn't feel like that. It was also enjoyable to read how a traumatic experience can bring people closer and change them. It was all very raw and emotional.

This book definitely has plenty of triggering parts which should be taken into consideration. Nothing really triggers me so they were pretty mild for me, it could have been way more gruesome.

All in all, it's a wonderful and at times pretty educational novel! If you're into exoplanets, stars and such, this will definitely grip you. And even if you aren't and don't know anything about it all (like me), you'll still enjoy it and very much so, promise.

A big theme in The Center of the Universe is the parts of people that we do not know, and it is explored in the mother-daughter relationship of GG and Grace. Grace's mother is a broadcast journalist and her work frequently has her away from her kids' lives, something that Grace resents. With her mother and grandmother both involved in being on-screen and their being public, Grace feels a disconnect with them with the astrophysicist aspirations and her need for privacy. When GG goes missing and the search for her continues beyond weeks, Grace slowly starts to learn about another side of her mother.

Drawing on complicated relationships daughters have with their mothers, the book shows through Grace how children often see their parents only in a singular role. Here, Grace only sees her mother as that, and resents her for not adequately fulfilling her role. She doesn't realize her mother is also a person, someone who has things that they want, someone who is caught in a personal crisis about where their life is going. From a teenager's point of view, it seems natural that she wants to be close to her mother, but from an adult's point of view, you can see that she is also rejecting the efforts being made to bridge that gap (to the point that it sometimes comes across as bratty). I also feel this is a book that will be read very differently based on the reader's own personal views and stage in life.

The book is being shelved as mystery on here, and yes, it is a mystery in the first half, as Grace and the police are trying to put the pieces together to find out what happened with GG's disappearance, but it is not a 'thriller' kind of mystery; it isn't the main attraction as with actual mystery novels. Instead, it is a slow building of Grace's new worldview, where she realizes there are many sides to people, including her mother, and her friends' parents. She finds a bond with Mylo, her friend and crush, who understands what it is like to be waiting for someone's safe return, and to have a complicated relationship with one's mother, and is her rock during this time. Grace and her best friend Iris also have a strong bond, but she feels Iris' happy family life means she has no base to understand her own struggles.

Finally, the book does a good enough job of connecting Grace's passion to her understanding of the world and of relationships. It is a good exploration of strained familial relationships, discusses abuse (and its effects on a person's psyche) and also touches upon going with your passions in life at the cost of your future.

The Center of the Universe was a thought-provoking novel that kept me on the edge of my seat with its well-written dialogue and fascinating characters. I was swept away from the very first page and the information about the stars that laced this story, appealed to the science buff in me. I thoroughly enjoyed this story with all its beautiful elements and I feel that everyone should add this to their TBR piles.

This was an interesting concept for book and I like that the author wanted to have a female protagonist with more interesting tastes than boys and fashion. Unfortunately for me this book just didn't hit the mark in terms of keeping me engaged with the story. It was enjoyable but not gripping.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review


This book was very...not the type of book I usually read? I like to say that I'm open to reading almost any type of book, and I am! But regardless of that, I don't really come across many books that are as character driven as this one was.

I know that some people may fight me on this, and it's not completely accurate, but I didn't really feel like there was much plot to this book. It's hard for me to explain this, but I want to clarify that this is not at all a bad thing. Obviously, there was a plot, Grace's mother goes missing, and that is a huge conflict that needs resolving throughout the book. Did her mother leave or was she kidnapped? Where is she? Who's responsible for her disappearance? There are loads of questions to be answered plotwise, and while the plot definitely does deliver in that way, the book was written in a way where the "conflict" felt smaller and less important to me than the actual characters and the way they reacted and developed in each situation.

An issue that I did have was that I wasn't particularly engaged with the book. It may be because I don't usually read mysteries and am not used to all the build-up and solving-like plotlines, but the beginning of the book really seemed to drag out for me. After I was about 25% in, it definitely picked up and I began to enjoy the book more.

One thing I loved about this book, on the other hand,  was how real it all seemed. Often times I come across characters in contemporaries who are larger than life and extremely unrealistic, but all the characters in this book felt so genuine and thought out. I loved how Grace's relationships with everyone developed throughout the book as well, her relationships with her family-her grandmother, her father, and her brother-and her relationship with her friends-Iris and Mylo.

Another thing I adored was all the sciencey tidbits sprinkled in throughout the book. Grace is obsessed with space and studies exoplanets in her spare time, hoping to one day become a full-fledged astronomer. Ria Voros seamlessly manages to explain advanced scientific concepts while also crafting them into beautiful metaphors.


All in all, The Center of the Universe wasn't what I was expecting, but I ended up enjoying it all the same. It's not the most thrilling book out there, but if you're looking to read something that has great character and family development, this would be a great choice for you.

With a beautiful cover, this first person young adult novel follows a young girl who is a third generation Grace, as she deals with her news anchor mother going missing. Though lately they haven’t been as close as she feels they should be, the news devastates her and her family, and makes them wonder what’s happened to make her mother just vanish into thin air. It was a record hitting hot day, they went to her little brothers soccer game, and her new friend Mylo was going to interview her mother during the break, when she just doesn’t show up. They assume she went to work, but later that night she’s still gone.



When her grandmother comes down to help out around the house, they start to wonder if something really has happened, that she may have been abducted rather than just took off. She begins to learn more about her own relationship with her family, as well as their relationship with each other, and she finds out that her parents may have been having problems in their marriage. A strange text is received by her father from her mother, and they know that someone else has texted them from her phone immediately.



This book puts such an interesting twist on the usual contemporary young adult fiction novel, with the missing parent factor. Grace and Mylo begin to bond immensely over the fact that her mother has disappeared, and she couldn’t have picked a better person. There isn’t too much typical high school drama in this book, which I really appreciated. It’s not every day you read a story about a mother going missing, and it really stood out to me when I read the description. It lived up to my hopes for it, though I feel like I didn’t really understand that the story was over when I reached the acknowledgements. That’s just something that happens sometimes though. My favourite character is probably Iris, out of everyone, because I would love to be her friend.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

This was a really thrilling contemporary novel. The family dynamic was really interesting and the series of characters presented by Voros was done really well. The relationships presented was explored in a really interesting way and Grace was a sympathetic and well rounded character who reads a believable teen. The story did not focus on one element too much and this created a good balance and there were no elements that seemed underdeveloped. One area I would have like to have seen developed further was what would happen after the book ends and whether Grace achieves her ultimate dream.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Like every other kid, I was awed by the amazing-ness of our universe. Every fact was super interesting and I loved learning about it. But while growing up, I got so engrossed by our modern life that I forgot about those details and this book just made me remember them.

The center of the universe is about Grace Carter whose mother GG goes missing one day. GG is a famous journalist and a favourite amongst the people, but her relationship with her daughter is somewhat strained. After she disappears, Grace learns a lot about her mother and finds a side of her that she never knew existed.

The book mainly focuses on the mother-daughter relation between the two and honestly, that was what that made me finish the whole book. The writing was very scattered and was quite aloof. It was really messy and disconnected but I read the uncorrected copy so I think a lot got edited after I got my copy. I was really intrigued for the first half of the book and then afterwards, it just dragged on. The mystery around GG's disappearance really built up but the ending didn't match it. 

The story had a good premise but I was really annoyed with the main protagonist. I was really underwhelmed with her and if I must say, super annoyed. She was selfish at most times and had this attitude that made me fume. I could not connect to her character at all. I know she is seventeen and has mommy-issues, but I was seventeen and that doesn't excuse the behaviour. Look at me being annoyed at teenagers while I, myself, still am one. 

Her relationship with Mylo was not really special and didn't stand out as much. It didn't develop properly and felt really flat. They did not connect much and I really wanted to see it grow because I actually liked Mylo a lot. 

I also enjoyed the astronomy section of the book quite a bit. It's very well researched and I remembered a few details that I knew about but forgot over the years. Made me feel a little appreciative and amazed of the universe. Overall a good book but it was not really exciting and a little disappointing.

 Would recommend it 5/10.

It was a decent read. The first half of the book was more slow paced but I kept reading because I did want to know what happened to her mother.

It was interesting reading about the relationship between Grace and her mother because the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter is something that I can understand. So, though at time I found Grace to be a bit bratty in regards to her mother, I did understand why she felt the way she did.

The mystery/abduction part wasn’t really crazy and wasn’t as wild as I’d thought it would be, but it did give the story a turning point where Grace and GG could get the chance to connect.

Grace’s relationship with Mylo was cute but I didn’t really get the feeling that they were getting in love, and I felt that it escalated fast. Still they had a very nice connection and it was nice to how Mylo was there to calm her down while her mother was missing. I also enjoyed her friendship with Iris. I felt they balanced each other perfectly.

All in all, I think it was a good book, just not as exciting as I thought it would be.

I almost DNFed this book, but I’m glad I didn’t.
It drags at the beginning, but I really liked the characters and I was curious enough about the romance brewing between Grace and Mylo that I kept reading.
It’s an interesting story and it’s executed well. The writing is good, it flows quite well, despite the pacing being slow in the first half of the book, it still keeps your attention. The characters are well-developed, and the relationship between Grace and her mom GG is intriguing throughout. I enjoyed the astrophysics facts scattered throughout the read, but then again, looking up that kind of facts is a hobby of mine.
All in all, this is a solid read. I haven’t read any of Voros’ work before, but I’m definitely gonna check it out now. Same goes for Elizabeth Tasker, the astrophysicists that’s mentioned and referenced in the book. And if you like YA/contemporary, mother daughter relationships that are going through rough patches and facts about space, then this is the book for you.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this early copy.

I went into this mystery/thriller/contemporary novel blind picking it up because of the cover. It was well-written with interesting characters and elements like the main characters focus on space/stars. It was longer than it needed to be and I was not a fan of the romance but I still enjoyed it. I will be checking out more from Voros in the future.

3.5 Stars out of 5

I received an e-arc of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

DNF @ 40%

Wow, I feel so bad right now and don't know how to review this book. Would anyone believe that I have never DNF a book in my life before? I always finish the book no matter how bad it is, but this time I couldn't force myself to read a 500pages book I didn't enjoy at all.

The main problem was probably the heroine. I found her super annoying, she was so moody and was complaining about everything, how her mother always works and never appreciate her. I could not connect with her in any way. Grace wants to be an astrophysicist, so her interests are planetary science and cosmology, something I'm not particularly interested in. At first, I found all the references to stars, the moon and the universe interesting, but after a few chapters, the metaphors and facts got too much that I started to skip a lot of them.

Something that was bothering me was the plot. We hardly see the relationship between Grace and her mother and then suddenly her mother is gone? After her disappearance, nothing really happens. I was waiting for ANYTHING to happen but nothing. Because I'm curious I read the last few chapters to see how the mystery was resolved, but it was kind of predictable.

Maybe this book is more for people who are interested in astrophysics and family mystery, but it was not for me.

Honestly, I have to admit that I wanted to DNF this book quite a few times and I skimmed through a large part of it. 

First off, the writing just was not appealing to me. It was hard to get into and paired with a bunch load of space references, it became extremely annoying. 

I have nothing against space references but well, one can only handle so many of them. The writing did get a bit better through the book though and as the space references decreased a bit, they became manageable.

Also, I just couldn't connect to the characters or become invested in their story until I was like 70% through. inability to connect to the characters made me not want to read the book and even after 70%, I just was not feeling it that much. 

I also felt that that the book had been stretched a lot and well I couldn't timeline it properly. I get that it had to be long so we could really see for long Grace's mother had been gone but it became frustrating to me.

This book is everything! It was so good. I felt really good reading it! It is a book full of emotions, love, friendships, bond between mother - daughter! I almost cried. Giving it a total 5 stars! Can't wait to get my hands on the physical copy!

Definitely would recommend this book.

I couldn’t bring myself to read all 500 pages of this book. I tried but only made it around 75 pages in. It just wasn't for me.

I wasn’t a fan of the writing. It was just really basic and kept going off on irrelevant tangents that I’m pretty sure have nothing to do with anything. It purposefully left out information, probably to discover later on in the book, but it ended up making it so jarring and disconnected. I literally thought I was reading a sequel for the first little bit because nothing was being explained.

The main thing that really bothered me though was that there was no build up before her mother went missing. 6 chapters yes, but in all that time it didn’t give me the faintest idea of what her relationship with her mother was really like. It was a lot of her complaining that her mother doesn’t understand her and then comparing everything to space.

I can’t talk about the mystery element without spoiling anything really, but it might have been the weakest disappearance I’ve ever read. I literally didn’t think anything of it because she’d already just disappeared 6 times to work in the span of a few chapters. I feel like it should have been prominent since the whole thing is about her disappearance.

I really appreciate being given the chance to read and review this early, but it’s definitely not for me

Despite having an aspect of mystery surrounding her mother's abduction (not ET-type as I originally believed, but kidnapped), Grace's story focuses more on family dynamic. I've seen many other reviews complaining that Voros used too many astrophysics analogies (although it does pretty much say she would in the description) which lead to confusion among some, so just be prepared going in. I myself didn't find them confusing but that may be due to the fact that I am 100% a science nerd and watch documentaries on space in my spare time.

I'm not typically into contemporary, but I identified with Grace so much I just couldn't help but enjoy this book. As a STEM girl myself (I'm an S for Neuroscience), I was delighted to see some representation for this group. There are so many of us out there and it's just a matter of time before people start realizing that.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. I enjoyed this contemporary novel that was part mystery, part romance, and part girl relationship. There were tons of astronomy facts in this book and I enjoyed that. There were parts of this novel that were a bit slow as well. Overall a good YA read.

A good book is one that I am thinking about when I'm not reading it, and an even better book is one that I am still thinking about even after I've finished it. This is one of those books - not because it is high literature or makes me think about the world in a different way, but because it completely immersed me in Grace's world, which is hard to do considering I am twice her age!

I'm not going to summarize the book, since I think that you can easily find that other places, but I want to share some of my favorite things about this read:

1. I really loved the science references. By education, I am a chemist, and so while I didn't understand all of the astronomy references, they felt genuine and it seemed like the author did her research, which I appreciated. I enjoyed how the author made science such a deeply rooted part of Grace's character, and made it a lens through which she viewed the world. I especially loved how the astronomy references tied together at the end to described Grace's relationship with her mother.

2. The mystery of Grace's mother's disappearance was exciting. I kept wanting to read to find out more, to see if she was kidnapped, or if she left of her own accord. To see if it was going to be a sad ending, a happy ending, or a Gone Girls type of ending (terrible, in case you were wondering). I won't spoil it, but I was pleased with how the mystery unfolding and the pace with which the author shared details.

3. While the mystery was exciting, the real enjoyment of this book was the day-to-day relationships between the characters. The friendship turned romance between Grace and Mylo was very sweet and not overdone. I believed the relationship between Grace and her dad - endearing but also typical of a 17 year old girl and her father - not knowing how to interact, especially in the face of heartache. But really, it was the female relationships that took center stage. Grace and her best friend are more like sisters who love and fight and understand each other without saying a word. Grace's relationship with her grandmother was interesting and sometimes very funny to read, especially as it changed over the course of events. And of course, Grace's relationship with her mother. Even though her mother has disappeared, we see how Grace used to see her mother, how she sees her mother now, and how she wants to see her mother. Yet, we also see how others see her mother, and that causes Grace to re-think so much that she thought she knew about her mom.

Overall, I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It is one that I couldn't wait to pick up to continue reading, and one that I kept thinking about after I finished it. I reserve my 5 star reviews for books that I think I will read again, and I can definitely see myself reading this one again.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book! The above review is my own opinion.

The Centre of the Universe had really great characters and was an easy read, definitely an enjoyable book!

Thanks Net Galley for this copy!

I enjoyed this book very much! I felt the narrator was age appropriate in her speech and was relatable. At first, I was a little skeptical about the kidnapping plot but it was well executed and just suspenseful enough. I loved the little "Easter egg" clues the author wove through the book that lead to the discovery of the mother. I loved the Grandmother character and Iris-the best friend. The star theme really spoke to me, two stars (the mother and daughter) can be close in proximity but not emotions and not know things about each other but still be connected. I loved that piece! I'd recommend this book to a friend and look forward to reading more by Ria Voros!