I really enjoyed this book, but had issues with the way it's marketed to readers.

The book is described as the story of a female astronaut who gets involved in a "fiery" romance that threatens a rescue mission. There IS a woman at the center of this story, and there is a rescue mission, but to describe this as a romance is incredibly misleading. There is a brief relationship that develops towards the end of the book, but it doesn't merit mentioning really in the single-sentence elevator pitch.

For readers who want to read a romance, they will be disappointed because there is very little. For readers who will NOT pick up romance, they'll be missing out on a great sci-fi read because of the blurb.

I really liked the book - the character was interesting, the setting felt real and lived-in, and the mystery element that unpinned the plot felt like it had real stakes. And I'd recommend the book for all of those reasons.

A gentle book about a young girl orphaned and living with her aunt and uncle. The uncle is a brilliant engineer who designs fuel cells for space travel. She develops a love of creating and engineering things similar to her uncles interests, figuring out how things work. This makes her a rather odd child, who is always picking up scraps and making things or reworking things to be more efficient. Her uncle passes away and her aunt is less than tolerant of her experiments so she sends her away to the school her husband established to train young people to become astronauts. She is still considered odd but brilliant. She finally ends up in space where her inventiveness is appreciated .
The story is a bit bittersweet and melancholy but is a nice calming read. I enjoyed the steady striving of the characters as they work towards solutions.

Kate Hope Day has given us another fascinating, beautifully-written genre-bending novel. Equal parts sci-fi mystery and coming-of-age romance, IN THE QUICK is, at its heart, a feminist story about June, an engineering prodigy fighting to be taken seriously in the austere world of deep space. I couldn’t put it down.

This was a good book, but not a great book. It's fast-paced and very readable. However, I do feel that the book needs some heavy editing. The book focuses on too broad a span of time (from the main character's childhood through adulthood and into her career as an astronaut). I felt that the first section of the novel about the main character's childhood was too long and the section on the Pink Planet was too short. I would have also enjoyed more character development, particularly in the supporting characters of Amelia and Simon, and a more developed romance or no romance at all..

DNF. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy! I decided to not keep reading this one, it was not for me. Thanks!

June is a special girl. Her mind is advance and makes her an unlikable child. Only her uncle gets her, he is a genius himself. June is shipped off to a training school after his death, even when she has not reached an acceptable age to be admitted.
The first half of the book is not an easy read as so much time is spend with June and her awkwardness, her inability to express herself and her ideas, her isolation with her aunt and in school.
In the second half of the book, you get to travel with June on a space mission and that is when the book is hard to put down to. June finally has proved her theory from 6 years ago!
I would say the closest reminder to The Martian hits here, but otherwise, this book has its own surprises to unravel. Much enjoyable and hard to forget the story!

THE MARTIAN meets JANE EYRE in this rich sophomore novel. I was immediately snagged by Kate Hope Day's prose and totally wrapped up in June's story from page one. Recommend!

Growing up around her engineer uncle, June discovers her knack for invention and joins his space exploration company after his death. Turning into a brilliant and capable scientist, she soon becomes obsessed with an old mission that went awry with its astronauts presumed dead. A hypothesis she disagrees with. As her work continues in space, she ends up on a pink-hued moon with another scientist named James. She tries to work alongside him to solve the missing ship's power problems but she finds herself caught between the two, leading her to discover who she is and what she really wants.

This was very beautifully written, I enjoyed the humanity of this book. I liked June and her intelligence, just as much as I liked her kindness.

I do think that the description, however, is misleading. This is definitely not a love story in the way it's projected to be. There is a love story but it's not the main theme. The love arc doesn't even begin till the the final act. It's more so her journey through her expectations of life and who she wants to be. More coming of age than romance.

Thank you to Netgalley/Random House for the ARC!

I was really trying to get into the storyline of this book, but it was impossible. The story of June as a kid drags on for way too long. I feel like the author over explained a lot. The book felt like a rolldercoaster with a lot of ups and downs of suspense. I think if you’re a big fan of sci-Fi this will be more for you. Additionally. I found it strange that the author didn’t use quotation marks. It made it tedious for me, as the reader, to know when to know a character was speaking.

A brilliant young astronaut (and the niece of a brilliant rocket scientist) makes it her mission to figure out what went wrong on a deep space mission that stranded 4 astronauts, and watching June grow up and grow into her family’s legacy while traveling through space and solving tricky problems was fascinating. This lacks the humor of The Martian and annoyingly does not use quotation marks for dialogue (a stylistic choice that puzzles me, but I digress), but I tore through it in two nights.

I REALLY wanted to love this book. I'm a huge fan of Kate Hope Day's first novel, I was excited when I saw this was available to wish for, and overjoyed when the publisher granted my wish. Unfortunately, all that led to disappointment. I didn't enjoy this book at all, certainly nowhere near as much as IF, THEN. I didn't like the character of June. I felt way too much time was spent on her childhood/teen years and then, when she was finally an adult, she still acted selfish and childish. I struggled to finish this book and then sat with it for over a week trying to think of a way to give it some semblance of a good review. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I do believe Kate Hope Day is an extremely talented writer, and I'll jump on whatever she writes next, but this one is a definite miss for me.

The book also has one of my most-despised affectations: no quotation marks around the dialogue. I've yet to find any plausible defense for why an author would do this or why a publisher would let them do it. Is it supposed to make the book seem more poetic? Profound? "Grown-up"? It's simple punctuation. Imagine this review without any periods or capitalization. Even if I'd adored every other aspect of the book, it would lose a star for that alone.

At first a seemingly straight forward science fiction a-la The Martian and Ad Astra with later allusions to Moon (Sam Rockwell) and Gravity (Sandra Bullock) lingering in the Pink silt. June was such a captivating character that her life will pull you in immediately from the very first chapter.

This is a story of a young brilliant girl, the niece of a genius scientist astronomer, who becomes captivated at a young age by a tragic manned mission that her uncle had direct responsibility for its failure. The entirety of the novel, June attempts to solve the issue of the energy cell that failed the Inquiry mission as she discovers at the young age of 12 a missed communication method through the sanitation system that Inquiry has been attempting to use. No one believes her, of course, until she becomes an actual astronaut and the very people that worked on the original mission schematics become her colleagues. One of these colleagues is James. A romance blooms between them as they work together to solve the issue of the cell; but as with most sci-fi stories, we are ultimately left with a sense of melancholy instead as June departs without James on her much awaited rescue mission for the Inquiry.

Perhaps the most enthralling aspect of Kate Hope Day’s writing is the hyper-real aspect of June’s world. In other terms, this story is a possible outcome of human error in the foreseeable future. Although we do not often see specific mathematical or scientific outlines of what June is having to learn or create, Hope Day’s words flow lyrically across the page as if It is meant to express how science becomes art. Inclusively, we are given a very hopeful aspect of humanity that if we work together we can save each other. My only regret for this book is that it could not continue – to show us a successful mission – or to continue to live in June and James’ world. Praise for In The Quick!

I LOVED In The Quick!! Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for the privilege of reading an advanced copy. And thank you to Kate Hope Day for writing one of my favorite characters in June Reed!! I have not stopped thinking about her since I finished the book!!
Please see my full review on GoodReads (link below).

This was an absolutely stellar read! It is filled with multiple elements; it has romance, mystery, suspense, space/aeronautical theme and a science fiction feel to everything. The book completely held my attention through the entire reading and I must admit that I had difficulty putting it down. I initially expected the book to be a certain read and yet finished the book completely surprised.

June is a fascinating character. She is one part child and one part of adult. She is a bold, difficult, brave and yet simplistic main character. She was intriguing and complex. I found the story to be absolutely enthralling. Watching the plot develop was amazing. This book isn't in my typical genre, but I'm so very thrilled that I read it. It was a complete pleasure. You should run, not walk, to read this book!

I would like to thank Kate Hope Day, Random House Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In the Quick by Kate Hope Day is a brilliant novel that has multiple elements: space/aeronautical components, romance/relationships, mystery, suspense, and almost a science fiction component. This novel kept me coming back for more, again and again. I went in expecting one thing, and finished with something completely unexpected and surprising.

June is a very interesting character. Part child/part adult. Part bold and brave, part difficult and simplistic. It was fascinating to follow her into her world. I loved the mystery aspect on trying to find Inquiry. It was also totally enthralling to be a part of this different world and society, and I loved sifting through the unraveling plot piece by piece.

I definitely took a chance and went out of the normal genres that I usually delve into to experience this book. I am most certainly glad I did. An unexpected pleasure.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication.

In a dystopian world where children are trained to become astronauts in their teens, protagonist June is a precocious, self-centered, thoughtless child who grows into a hubristic, self-centered, thoughtless, and reckless adult. Driven to show that she is always, always right and better, June rejects the critical necessity of teamwork in engineering in order to follow her own agenda, leading to the ends of others' careers and health. In addition to having one of the least sympathetic narrators I've ever read, this book offers a view of engineering and science that is completely antithetical to the way those things should work. Engineers are unethical, withholding vital information; they keep deadly secrets in space; they behave like children. Perhaps this is intended as a cautionary tale about what happens when we let the cult of genius aggrandize itself unchecked, but I think the author genuinely thinks this is all heroic or realistic or something. Want good books about women in space? Go read The Calculating Stars and its sequels instead.

This book! June, lovely June. At twelve she is engaging and smart and passionate. Her love for an uncle, now dead, is palpable. He stoked her dreams and even though he’s gone June carries. I loved following her through the aunt’s house and cringed in so many places. She takes everything apart and it’s wonderful. It hurt my heart when she arrived at Peter Reed. Thrust into an unfamiliar setting in the middle of the school year and too young on top of it all her passion and inventiveness carried me through the beginning. The remaining story and the big thrust of the book is a lost ship, Inquiry. Built to run on her Uncle’s fuel cell design it has been lost and Inquiry’s location and the fuel cell problem become the focus for her and I was riveted. Such a great story. Scratched that itch I’ve had for space and astronauts. Really loved this book.