I really wanted to like this book but unfortunately I could not get into it. I do not think this was the one for me. The premise was super interesting, but towards the end to me it just fell apart.

I normally don't enjoy spacey books as I have a hard time imagining the planets the way the author wants. Since I absolutely adore this author I thought I would give it a go. It was slow to start but once they reached the planet it definitely picked up. The romance was of course a love triangle as the author usually has.
The main character was super dense. She couldn't seem to make the connections needed to understand what was being told to her. I wanted to scream at the book multiple times for that reason alone.
Overall a really good book by an author I love.

Unfortunately, this book didn't really resonate with me. I found the main character to be annoying and the book read more like the story was told instead of shown. I will admit that it was researched very well and overall the plot was interesting, but I just wasn't invested. I'm sad to say this book wasn't for me.

In fact keeping Astra’s secret was the reason her family decided to leave the Earth and join a terraforming mission to colonize a distant planet called Crillain IV. But when Astra wakes early from hypersleep, she discovers that her mother never made it onboard, her father died in transit and his body has been ejected from the ship, and she suspects that she’s not the only one awake. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

I enjoyed this, I liked the romance between the characters, the setting and space theme was interesting. I don't normally read many science fiction YA so this was different and was a good pallet cleaner after so many contemporary books. It was fast paced, the writing was awesome, I always seems to enjoyed Colleen Houck's writing so much! I thought as well that the character were interesting and I liked them and enjoyed their storylines. I definitely wish I had read this sooner because I enjoyed myself immensely.

ALIENS! ASTRONAUTS! Those are all I need!

I loved it! This was an unique twist on a sci-fi YA book!

this was a really good read, the characters were great and I thought it was a great start to a scifi series. I look forward to more in the series.

Terraformer by Colleen Houck was one hell of a ride! Astra Meador is part of a terraforming crew. Despite some early hiccups, and one loss en route, the ship arrives safely and the crew starts setting up. Trouble's brewing though. Attempts to take samples of the plant life fail, as do attempts to cultivate their own crops. Then the truly odd things start happening. Add everyone's secrets to the mix and you've got a volatile mix.

I loved the tech! I know reliance on tech is one warning the book has to offer, and we should be more careful with our use of science, but the ability to accelerate the growth of Terran flora and fauna to release or plant on their new home is pretty cool. On the flip side, Uncle Harm's treehouse home, complete with real books, made my heart sing. It sounded so lovely and peaceful.

Jax and his uncle were my favourites. Having lived off-grid, both are much more in tune with nature than the other colonists. Harmon even figured out how to work with the native flora, and was the one who clued Astra on to it. While not quite so extreme, my own thoughts mirror theirs- Harm, Jax, and Astra. We need to respect our planet more than we do.

Highly recommended!!

***Many thanks to the authors/ publisher for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed via JBN Tours.

Is there a story where plants and trees are the main protagonists?
Well, it does exist and it is one of the originals that I have been able to read this year.

The author literally launched me into space with this story. I am not a lover of science fiction but this book knew how to catch me. also the author is of my entire confidence when she creates stories of myths and supernatural events with a good background.

I really liked this world and the teaching it leaves.

*****
Existe una historia donde las plantas y los arboles son los principales protagonistas?
Pues si existe y es de los original que he podido leer este año.

La autora literalmente me lanzo hasta el espacio con esta historia. No soy amante de la ciencia ficción pero este libro supo atraparme. además la autora es de mi entera confianza cuando crea historias de mitos y acontecimientos sobrenaturales con un buen trasfondo.

Me gusto mucho este mundo y la enseñanza que deja.

This was such a good book!! I’ll admit, I had to take a star off because Astra was driving me nuts. I mean it’s one of those things where you’re yelling at the book because the main character doesn’t see the blatantly obvious truths before her. She is even told the truth multiple times but it just isn’t clicking. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ Otherwise, it was super good!!

It was a little bit of a slow start, but once they got to the planet and the mystery started to unfurl, I was hooked. I had my hypothesis set by about halfway through, but while I figured out a few minor things, I wasn’t right and those make for the best types of stories!! There were just several surprises and I was kept on my toes.

[spoiler] Jax’s uncle, Uncle Harm, is easily my favorite character. He’s funny, truthful, and no one pays any attention to him even though he’s constantly right and knows a ton of amazing stuff!!! [(hide spoiler)] He had me cracking up at his comments and I just adored him. Jax was also fun and easy to like throughout the book. Thane? I’m still out in judging him. He’s interesting to say the least.

I haven’t read much by Colleen Houck, but after this, she’s definitely on my radar!! I recommend this to YA sci-fi lovers and botanists who enjoy a good fictional plant story. Super fun read!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Colleen Houck for allowing me to read this for my honest and unbiased opinion!!

I'm not much of a sci-fi lover, so I went into this with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Colleen's writing is very beautiful. I felt like I was being pulled into the story with each turn of the page. Her characters were written great and the drama was epic. I did feel it was a bit long at times, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story. I enjoyed the pinch of romance and all the character interactions. Overall, I'm excited to read more from Colleen Houck!

This book was received as an ARC from Colleen Houck via Trident Media Group in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

When I read the first page of this book, my mind immediately went to fifth element but as I read on I got a little bit of Lucy but then after I finished the book my mind immediately went to Passengers. So if I were to describe Terraformer to our patrons, I would say fifth element meets Lucy who both become passengers. Also I got a little sense of Poison Ivy too with the Botanicals in the colony. I didn't want to finish the book because I was so involved with the ride that I did not want it to end. I know our teen book club will have plenty to say and will spark many enticing and exciting conversations,

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

I really wish I loved this book. I loved Colleen Houck's Tiger's Curse series, but everything else she has written has gone downhill. This book had tropes that were so obvious and overused. This included the good boy/bad boy trope, sex pollen which really surprised me, and so many others that really sucked. Nothing was explained in this book and it all came so conveniently to the main character. The reveals were so obvious and everything about this book was a little ridiculous. The overall plot was interesting, but the execution was not there and nothing was satisfactory.

I'm going to be honest, I was SO excited for this book. It was the first book by Houck I have ever read but I heard wonderful things about her previous series. Unfortunately this feel very flat for me. The writing style was more telling than doing/detailing and the main character seemed so oblivious most of the time.

Terraformer is a sci-fi/dystopian/ya novel from Collen Houck. I don't read that much sci-fi but I did really like this book.

Astra Meador woke up earlie from hypersleep with having a weird dream. Weirder thing is that you're not even supposed to dream in hypersleep. Learning that her mom never make it onboard and that her father in transit is body ejected from the ship. When the ship finally land, she is reunited with her brother, Nash, and meet Jax, a young engineer, and the son of the commander that will be the leader of their small colony. But with theft and a murder occuring in the colony, Astra will have to be careful with who she can trust.

It gets a bit weird towards the end but I really enjoyed this book. I have received an arc with Netgalley and the publisher.

Interesting concept... poor execution.
My biggest grippe is with the characters:
Astra - the meek botanist.
Thane - the cocky leader.
Jax - the brooding engineer.
Nash - the strange brother.
Uncle Harm - the boomer.
And that's about it. The rest of the characters were pretty much non-existent.
They were all one-dimensional and their interactions were downright cringey. None of the relationships felt believable to me because there would be time jumps of weeks or months in which the characters were said to interacted and apparently got along really well, but we didn't get to see that. Example: Astra and Delenna who were roommates and and apparently "friends"... but we only actually got three or four interactions between them. The rest was off-screen. It's very hard to believe that these girls were good friends if all we know of their interactions is that they shared food once and talked about their jobs a couple of times.
Another example: The love interests. Astra reportedly had plenty of witty conversations with Thane which showed their compatibility... but we never got to see those conversations! And i'm guessing it was the same with Jax? I just can't remember anymore.
On that note, let's discuss the romance. I'm not exaggerating when I say I scowled at every interaction between Jax and Astra, Thane and Astra, and Thane and Jax fighting over Astra. The romantic interactions were so sickly sweet and cringey. The boys fighting over her? Talk about toxic masculinity. But of course Astra was quiet and meek and "didn't want the boys fighting over her" and "wanted to make her own choices" but let herself be pushed around and manipulated by these guys. This book just gave us a very very poor example of what is romantic and what is an acceptable way to treat a love-interest. (Oh also Jax assures us that there is no scientific way to explain love... I guess we're just going to ignore oxytocin and all the other neurotransmitters proven to be involved in love.)
I also got a lot of anti-progress vibes from this book. The characters who were anti-vaxx, anti-technology, anti-modern medicine, anti-GMO, etc., were seen as the ultimate good and as if they could do no wrong. Here are some exmaples.
Astra info-dumps about something called wonder bars (I think) which used GMOs to pack in all the nutrients you'd need for a day into one chocolate bar. Then she goes on about how those bars were actually bad because people ate several a day when they were supposed to only eat a couple a week... and somehow the blame is turned onto the GMOs for the negative health effects associated with overeating which makes no sense whatsoever.
It's said that scientists have been able to remove genetic diseases from the gene pool... and apparently that's a bad thing? If you know that you have the the gene that will cause Huntington's, why wouldn't you want that gene reduced to the size that will not cause Huntington's? Why would you want to pass that gene down to your children if you could get it fixed? Why would you want to pass on a preventable disease? I just don't get it.
Oh and on the topic of neurodegeneration, apparently uncle Harm had "advanced neurodegeneration" (from a disease that was never named) but he was able to take care of himself and speak and do all the things that people with advanced neurodegeneration cannot (people with advanced neurodegeneration are bed-bound and need round the clock care because their disease has eaten away their brain to the bare bones.... another reason why if you have the technology to do so, you should be eradicating these diseases!). Anyway, that whole subplot was soon tossed aside with a simple "well he actually didn't go see a doctor about it and diagnosed himself so maybe he was wrong". That was just lazy writing in my opinion. I did try to figure out what exactly he had, but the only two symptoms mentioned were tremors at rest, personality changes and "spacing out" (which I assume implied dementia). It's possible the author was going for Parkinson's, but if his only motor symptom was a tremor then he wouldn't have dementia (which comes much later in the disease).
I've got a lot more to say, but I just don't have the energy to say it. Here's my takeaway from the book: bland characters, unhealthy relationships, anti-progress, lazy writing.
Hopefully you guys enjoy it more than I did.

*I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

O . . . kay. That was quite literally one of the strangest books I've ever read. And if I'm being honest, I am currently reconsidering my desire to read her other books. Perhaps this one is a fluke--I don't know. But if Terraformer is pretty standard for this author's writing, then I'm out.

Where to start? I guess I'll just say things as I think of them. Shall we begin?

All of the characters were written like caricatures, with a couple of characteristics accentuated and nothing else really developed. Villains were straight out of a melodrama. Thane tried to be an alpha male. Uncle Harm was pure hillbilly. Astra was . . . I don't know, kind of ridiculous. She claimed she was "strong willed," but she was spineless and quite easily swayed by the words and opinions of others. The only character I even remotely liked was Jax, and I still found him overdone.

The writing. Oh, the writing! Have you ever read a cheesy romance novel? I mean a really cheesy one. Yes? Well, apply that writing to a futuristic sci-fi book about people trying to colonize an alien planet, and you've got this book. Especially the dialogue.

This book was long. Yes, obviously--it's 536 pages. But some long books seem short because they're so good. This one lasted. Forever. Whole sections could--and should--have been cut out. Astra goes off on tangents, detailing things like the history of jet packs. Some of her ramblings were several torturous pages long. I believe it was an attempt at world building, but it just came across as a long-winded history lesson told by someone who's just trying to fill time. Information that could have been provided in maybe a paragraph.

Aside from that, the book is like that one friend that is adamant about everyone being vegan in order to prevent the collapse of the entire universe. Except apparently plants have feelings, too, and they're sentient. So . . . yep. People are bad. Genetically modifying anything as bad (unless it's done by sentient trees). Imagine an extreme--and I do mean EXTREME--tree hugger, and you've got this book. Sheesh, I hope it wasn't actually printed on real paper.

It's really just weird. And really out there. I mean, if you're enthusiastically interested in plant-animal and plant-human hybrids on far away planets, then maybe this book will be your thing.

Note: Maybe some mild language. Melodrama. Way too may pages.

I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Well, the one big thing I took away from this book is that you need to be nice to nature or Mother Nature is going to put you back in your place one day. This was a pretty cool story. I am glad that it wasn't really a love triangle, that it was plain who Astra preferred. I don't think that the secrets that the various people had (Jax or Astra) were all that dark. It was just one person that had a nasty secret that you don't find out till near the end to ratchet up the danger.

I did like the descriptions of the various flora on the planet. They were easy to picture. I also liked the hybrids.

This was a good book to read and it finished things up nicely but did leave it open a little for a possible second book.

This was an interesting read. Not the best one, I admit, but it was good. I didn't like the mc at all, though. She just felt disconected. All in all, I recommend it if you don't have anything else to read.

The writing is not very good. It is trying to hard to be magical and misses the mark. The premise sounded interesting but the reality is strange and poorly executed. The cover is pretty yet also looks unprofessional. This author’s previous work is popular at my work but I won’t be buying this book.