In The Quick by Kate Hope Day had a lot of potential, but I didn't necessarily feel like it completely lived up to it. There were definitely parts I enjoyed, but there were also parts I struggled to get through. June was a great character, and I really liked her, but at times I did find her decisions to be a bit irrational. I thought the themes of the cost of science and the resiliency of the human spirit were included well, however. Overall, I did enjoy this book, but felt that it could've been better in some ways.

I enjoyed this book, and thought it had so many wholly unique elements. I felt immersed in the settings, despite their dissimilarities with my everyday life. It felt adventurous, though read a bit slower than I tend to prefer for books similar to this one.

🌌 What worked for me:

I thought June was a great character and I was really into her academy experience. The dynamics of the students and her learning curve were really well written and unique.

I thought using the Inquiry as a backdrop rather than the main plot was a great way to explore June's coming of age.

I loved June's uncle and I loved that he stayed with her as an encouraging voice throughout the story.

🪐 What didn't work as well for me:

The marketing blurb for this book (as a space romance thriller) was wild. Why do publishers do this? Readers can enjoy a book that isn't fast-paced but misaligned expectations can kill the experience (and I think the reviews reflect this much more than the quality of the book).

I felt like we needed more time with June in the Gateway and less time in her aunt's house. The Gateway is arguably the location of her most pronounced growth and her time there felt rushed.

The way Theresa's storyline wraps up ... she deserved something more impactful.

Read this if you liked: Anatomy A Love Story (re smart, driven FMC), Milkman (re unique writing style and coming of age catalysts)

Loved reading the story of June and her ups and downs through this engaging book. The writing is amazing and I am looking forward to reading more books by the author. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the arc.

I highlighted this book on my Booktube channel. You can access the video here: https://youtu.be/07eltMoOJZ0

This is my first time reading a Kate Hope Day book and it won’t be my last! Do you have to suspend disbelief?…yes, but that’s why it’s science fiction. I love the concept and the writing. Bravo!

I was judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’d been doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got me to read on even though it was among 296 other books I’m charged to read.

Because ideas require bodies too, hands, lips, a tongue, ears. Otherwise they’re about as useful as dust motes drifting in the air.

What a beautiful thought.

I’m never sure what to expect when I encounter a story about space but this certainly was particularly unpredictable. From the wildly astute 12-year-old June who (small spoiler) makes her way into the astronaut training track at her boarding school affiliated with the space program to the way that when the book starts it’s already established the this a world where humans have far surpassed one space station circling Earth and are in fact studying other planets and taking people into deep space explorations… there’s a lot to unpack and be astounded by. Of course the regular human things are made known like June’s clash with her aunt, her insecurities, and romantic and professional longings. Not to mention, June’s uncle who worked closely with his students in the program and had a hand in designing fuel cells for the longterm manned space trip dies and leave precocious June determined to finish the work he left behind as a burgeoning student and then as a new astronaut fresh off of training. It was a pleasure to watch her grow.

I really enjoyed this book. The setting and character building were well done and I found myself intrigued and invested in the storyline all the way throughout.

Hmm…I’m honestly a little disappointed and confused by this book, especially the end. I legit was turning the pages in disbelief, thinking maybe they accidentally forgot to add in missing pages. Truly, this book just…ends. In a really bizarre way.

Aside from that, I did enjoy June’s character & loved seeing her grow up into an astronaut, but I felt that the entire book and characters were only half-developed. It felt like I was reading someone’s vague outline or draft of a novel rather than the finished product. The love story with June and James is incredibly rushed & honestly a little strange, so it was hard to really care much about it.

I also felt that it was hard to follow this book at times because none of the dialogue is in quotation marks, so there were several parts I had to re read because I had to discern what was dialogue and what wasn’t. Ultimately, this book had great potential and I loved her first novel If, Then, but unfortunately this one just didn’t do it for me.

I'm struggling to understand the point of this book. This book had like zero stakes. There wasn't any reason for the space exploration, no world ending moment that forced them to go and explore other planets. And why was she in this program, allowed to go into a spaceship? Just because her uncle was some sort of genius? She was so dumb. She was such a safety risk...
Also, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE QUOTATION MARKS!!

Originally didn’t give feedback because I DNF, but it’s hurting my feedback ratio, so I will say this wasn’t what I was expecting and I didn’t want to continue. I also never rate books I DNF but this makes me.

This was an unusual sci-fi novel but I found the writing and the story refreshingly honest. There were a few moments that didn't really land for me (especially the entire romantic relationship, which never clicked) but the writing is excellent and the world building is superb.

This is one of those books you still think about months after you finish it. A lost spaceship? A young astronaut? A pink planet? Another compelling read from Kate Hope Day.

I’m so sad to say that this just didn’t work for me. I loved Day’s debut novel, If, Then, and had high hopes for In The Quick. This just... fell completely flat for me. I didn’t feel particularly connected to June or her life. While the story was just interesting enough for me to keep reading, I got to the end and thought, “What was the point?”

I wish I had more to say about this, but I’ve tried to write this review three times and just don’t have anything to add. I found this nicely written but utterly forgettable. I’m hoping that I enjoy Day’s next book as much as her first.

This book had a lot of unnecessary detail. It was difficult for me to read through. I caught myself skimming through a lot of it.

For fans of Sally Rooney and Martha Wells. This felt like a blend of a literary character study and a gritty sci-fi thriller. What a treat!

I was pleasantly surprised by how accessible the content was and how quick I read this overall. I got the sense Kate Hope Day trimmed away every inch of "fat" on the manuscript, as we were left feeling that every word was precious and meaningful and economical. The filet mignon of spacey sci-fi, you could say.

June was such a fun and individual protagonist. I truly loved being in her head the whole time, from her childhood to her time at Peter Reed to her journeys into space. She has such a vast arc of growth and confidence and skill and I felt somehow so proud of her by the end. Absolutely loved it, even though I wish the ending wasn't so ambiguous.

TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Well, here we are, four months (egads) since my last post. I have nothing to blame but wellness (or lack thereof), pandemic brain and malaise, family emergency and probably just sheer lack of gumption. I have a ton of catching up to do and I don't want to let good titles get short shrift because my act hasn't been together, so...

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently. This first catchup set happens to include some of the best books I read this year. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy.

In The Quick, Kate Hope Day

I'm not one of those folks who is immediately all-in on a space story, but this cover left me powerless. Turns out the insides are just as fabulous, centering on June, whose Uncle Peter was famous for his fuel cell inventions. Then something went awry and he wasn't. June is difficult for her Aunt to raise alone following Peter's death, so she is sent to the National Space Training Program named after her uncle. Decades younger than her school peers, June struggles and flourishes. Even as she is ultimately given a coveted position on a space station, June is haunted by the spacecraft that went missing when she was twelve. Her intellect and belief in her uncle drives her to prove the craft is still out there and its crew alive, even after all this time. More than I expected in the best of ways.

The book was a bit hard to get into as the dialogue is not distinguishable from the story text but it did pick up. I enjoyed hearing June's story. There were only several parts in the book that kept me overly interested and I was slightly disappointed by the ending as there were some loose ends that were not tied up but overall it was a good read

I came into this book with no expectations other than the cover: space? pink? What on earth? And the beginning of the book sets up some questions which are fundamentally never answered. That said, I liked the heroine, I liked the elements of Jane Eyre, and I did feel the Andy Weir vibe. I'm not sure this absolutely lived up to its promise, but I found it engaging and interesting, and I liked the world building. I also found it spooky throughout- if anything, I think my issues with the novel in the end were that it didn't go as full-on for scare factor as it could have. This is the most sedate bunch of wacky astronauts I've met. Four stars for good writing, interesting premise, but the lack of fully-fleshed secondary characters and a fundamental mystery that is just... left alone... keep it from being a five star read for me.

I'm still thinking about it months later, though, so your mileage certainly may vary!