I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Thank you @netgalley and @berkleypub for the complimentary copy.

So I went into this expecting lots of sci-fi and was sorely disappointed. Everything is told from Julie, Val, David, and Sophie’s POV’s. Because of this, the view of what is happening outside of their family is very narrow with most of the focus on the family dynamics. The implications of the pilots on society are covered, but not in much depth. The characters aren’t well developed and I could not connect with them at all. You’re often told how they feel but I never actually felt it. You know what I mean? During the emotional moments I felt nothing. Not for me unfortunately.

I highly recommend Sarah Pinsker's latest narrative, as she continues to establish herself as a prominent science fiction author. Her exceptional writing style and engrossing storytelling captivate readers' attention from start to finish. I enthusiastically endorse this work and eagerly await more literary gems from this talented author.

To get a pilot or not get a pilot, that is the question and this family is divided about this popular new brain enhancing technology.

The story included some major time jumps as we follow the characters through out their lives. The pacing was slower than I had anticipated which made the vibes suspenseful and thriller-ish at times. Some characters struggles with the implant were more horrific than others.

Overall the We Are Satellites was dark, frightening and full of family drama, leaving the reader with lots to ponder.

I'll be filing this as a future re-read and I look forward to reading more from Sarah Pinsker.

I enjoyed this book, though not as much as Sarah’s last. An interesting conceit about technology privilege. Will appeal to fans of Don’t Look Up.

I've found myself mentioning this book over and over to friends since I read it. Though I didn't adore the book and wished it were shorter at times, I have found it extremely relevant. The style of a very realistic, literary novel that explores a science fiction topic is just such a fun one that I kept reading even when the day to day lives of the characters was a little boring. It really brought out all the nuances and conflicts of the potential brain-enhancing technology in a way that grounded it in realistic experiences. I loved that about it, I loved the casual lesbian mom representation, and I loved the interesting concepts portrayed through a single divided family. I was just also bored a lot.

Very late to leave this review, but I hope people will see this because We Are Satellites is an interesting read that deserved more attention than it seems like it got at the time.

Sarah Pinsker's work always feels prescient because it is very much tuned in to what is happening right now and extrapolating *just enough* to tap into very real experiences and fears, and always coupled with great character work that carries you beyond just a sci-fi premise. A great near-future SF read.

Solid 4/5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for an e-arc of this book. Although I did ultimately listen to the audiobook. The audiobook was a solid performance, but not exceptional.

We are satellites is a semi-dystopian novel about a world where human technological advancements, or body modification, has come into existence. People can install these devices that give them the ability to have increased awareness and focus. It makes them much more efficient with everything they do.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, them being generally good to fine in nature. Overall, I am disappointed in this book, but it is at no fault of the book itself. I read "We are satellites", and I thought this was some type of space story. I'm a planetary scientist; I hear "satellites" and think the planets. When I ultimately realized that is not at all a space story, there was a little disappointment. In that sense, the story is a bit more mundane than I thought it was going to be. That's not inherently bad, just not what I was hoping for.

This is not heavy sci-fi. If that's what you're looking for, this isn't the book for you. However I can imagine a lot of people probably liking this kind of soft sci-fi, exploring futuristic ideas that are very much grounded in the human experience. And that is exactly what this book shines at. It basically takes this idea, an idea that really isn't that removed from many of the things already happening today, and explores how this idea would be problematic. It talks about how it would be exploited and used to discriminate.

I thought it had an interesting conversation. That said, I did not feel as though the message was particularly profound. That statement is very subjective, so take it with a grain of salt. But I'm leaving this not really feeling that different about the whole thing. The entire time I was reading this book I was thinking of how I would be in the group of people who would quickly jump on something regardless the consequences. That's just the kind of person that I am. This book highlights why I shouldn't be so keen to do that, but I'm still not sure if it was enough to stop me from doing it if the opportunity ever comes in life.

The story follows one family in particular. One son, a daughter, and their two moms. Among them we essentially have members of both sides of this debate. The son wants to fit in, but the daughter isn't eligible because of an underlying condition. then we see the mothers each siding with one of the kids, and it does create an interesting dynamic. Overall it felt real, but not completely. I can't pinpoint exactly what my problem was, but in the end I did feel a level of artificialness to the story. To be clear, I'm only trying to explain why it's not a five-star; it is still sufficient to be I think immersive. So don't mistake this critique, as being a dominating aspect of the story.

To sum up, solid story that wasn't entirely what I wanted, but it was still good at what it was trying to do.
4/5

If you could have a simple procedure to implant a device that would significantly improve your attention and ability to multitask, would you? What if so many people did that society started to shift in a way that made it almost necessary? In We Are Satellites, a piece of technology, called a Pilot, does just that. The novel centers on one family who all have different experiences with the pilot: Mothers Val and Julie, their son, David, and daughter, Sophie. David comes home from school begging for a pilot, and eventually his mothers agree. Julie finds that as society adopts Pilots, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to do her job without one. Val holds out in solidarity with Sophie, who, due to her epilepsy, is ineligible. The story follows the family as the device becomes ubiquitous, and an anti-pilot movement rises.

To offer a comparison, not having a Pilot in this story becomes akin to what it's like these days to not have a smartphone.

This is exactly the kind of sci-fi I love the best. This is near-future with almost zero world-building, just a dystopian look at the role of a piece of fictional technology. As a result, this reads like an episode of Black Mirror.

As a human with ADHD, We Are Satellites had me seriously considering what I would do if technology like this existed. It sounds like taking all of the good things about ADHD (broad scope of focus, noticing peripheral stimuli and patterns quickly, and hyperfocus), and utilizing them with the capacity to multi-task and focus effectively. It always helps in books like these when the technology is an easy sell, and I can definitely see how the Pilot gained traction in our hustle-culture world.

Also worth mentioning, this book is just chock full of casual queerness in the best way possible. This family has two mothers, there are nonbinary and trans side characters, and Pinsker never stops to point it out or make it the focus. Add to that that this is a casually queer book that's NOT centrally focused on romance, and that earns it even more points.

I was behind on reviews and ended up snagging the audiobook version of this from my library, and I would strongly advise that people able to do so choose to read this in print. I found that the narration fell a bit flat and made some of the characters a bit more difficult to differentiate.

This review was originally posted on <a href="https://booksofmyheart.net/2021/07/17/we-are-satellites-by-sarah-pinsker/" target="_blank"> Books of My Heart</a>
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<i>Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.</i>

I was comfortable reading <strong>We Are Satellites</strong> with a rather slow pace.  The characters are developed and very independent individuals in a family of four.  Their lives and relationships are driven somewhat by the new technology in the Pilot.

David, the son and Julie, one of the Moms, get one.  Sophie can't get one because of medical issues and becomes an anti-Pilot activist. Val, the other Mom, does not want one.   I have to say I connected more emotionally to Val and Sophie, although I didn't find myself attached to any of these characters very much. All of their emotions and reactions are relatable and realistic, though.

I kept waiting for something to happen.  Various little things happen and the "big" thing at the end is more told to us than shown. Yet we are shown many tedious details of daily life of this family over about 10 years.    I was so proud of Sophie. She was so smart. As the youngest and with a medical condition, she was taken for granted, and yet she really keys in to the truth.  Her choices are kind of immature at times, though.  Val was more steady and kind than Julie.

The new technology gives the corporation both power in influence and money.  The overall aspects of a corporation being dishonest with the public to their detriment, and greedy, is all too believable.  I liked this family story with technology which was well written but not a thriller.

I was a big fan of We Are Satellites. The story takes place in a world where voluntary brain implants are in the process of becoming ubiquitous and focuses on one family, in which half of the members have Pilots and half do not. We get to know other technology holdouts and how society is changed by gadgets in ways that most people cannot foresee. The shifting perspectives were done really well and the technology was used in such a way that it felt real. I had a lot to think about regarding the devices in my life and how I relate to them after I finished this book.

This was such a lovely book. It wasn't quite as "science fiction-y" as I was expecting, but it was still a really great read! It had a nice mix of family dynamics, character development, and interesting concepts.

I loved the family interactions and being able to see the children grow from little kids to adults. Their growth felt so real and organic. I really felt connected to them and wanted to keep reading to make sure they were all ok!

There were times when the story felt a bit slow for my taste, particularly in the beginning when I was still figuring out what was happening. But I cared about the characters so much that I was able to keep going even when the plot moved slower.

I am really glad I was able to read this book! It was such an interesting concept and really made me think. If you like books that focus on character development, I would definitely give this one a read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for t he chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Summary
Young David pushes his mothers to let him accept a free Pilot - a new, surgically installed device that all his classmates have to help them multi-task - but finds it doesn't work for him quite as expected. As he struggles - and joins the military - one mother gets her own Pilot, one mother refuses, and his Pilot-ineligible sister becomes an anti-Pilot activist.
Review

I believe Sarah Pinsker came to my attention via a story nominated for an award, but, oddly, I can seem to pinpoint which. At any rate, her name developed a slight familiarity and vaguely positive tinge. When I saw this book, I thought I’d give it a try, and I’m glad I did.

The title is somewhat misleading. There’s only a passing mention of satellites, and even as a metaphor, it’s pretty distant from the narrative and relationships, despite what the provided Reader’s Guide would have you think. This is a very near-future story entirely set in a mid-sized town on Earth, and with a limited set of characters – so near-future that it’s really only mildly speculative, though it handles that mild SF element well.

At heart, it’s a story about family – two mothers, a son, and a daughter – and how they react to the new technology of the ‘Pilot’, a device that can help people multi-task, but doesn’t work for all. While the story is largely a quiet, small-scale one, Pinsker’s characters are the stars here. The perspectives alternate among them, and each is fully formed, credible and engaging. It’s a pleasure to see them interact, which is good, because that’s essentially what the story is about; the Pilot is mainly a plot device.

While Pinsker’s characters and prose are very strong, and the personal implications of the Pilot are well considered (the social ones much less deeply), I had trouble buying some of the technology. For example, a key plot point is the fact that the Pilots have a blue light – but there’s never really any reason why they should or would. Second, the fact that essentially the whole country converts to an embedded device from a single manufacturer, that over decades has no competition, was difficult to buy.

Overall, though, this is a pleasant, engaging, mild-SF story of family and devotion, somewhat along the lines of Connie Willis. It may not strain your imagination, but you’ll enjoy reading it.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Often in magical realism, a writer takes one little bit of magic and plunks it into an otherwise entirely realistic story, like adding a single drop of blue food dye into a glass of water that remains water, but water newly, wholly colored by that one tiny drop. In Sarah Pinsker’s novel, We Are Satellites, we have what one might class science-fictional realism; she eschews building the usual futuristic world full of advances and instead offers up a single drop in the form of the Pilot, a brain implant that allows the wearers to multitask without loss of focus, making them incredibly efficient. Pinsker further narrows the story by focusing like a laser on a single family and the varying impact the introduction of the Pilot into society has on each member, crafting a quiet, character-driven story, a sort of domestic science fiction novel that explores a big issue via a narrow prism. We see flashes of a broader societal impact, but we’re mostly concerned about these specific people, though we can extrapolate from their successes and struggles to the society at large.

The family is made up of mothers Val and Julie (in one of the stronger aspects of the novel, this relationship isn’t a “thing”; it just is) and children David and Sophie, an older teen and a ten-year-old respectively. In the early part of the story, Pilots are just beginning to be introduced into society, with Val, a teacher at a posh private school, noticing the telltale blue LED light at the temple on some of the more privileged students. In short order, David is asking for one, noting he’s one of the last in the school (he goes there thanks to her job) to get one, and thus begins the first bit of dissension in the family. Val isn’t a fan of brain surgery; Julie, who has seen it in the younger workers at the Congressman’s office she works at not only understands David’s desire for one but wants one herself; and Sophie, who has epileptic seizures, can’t get one.

Val resists, but even she knows, “people want what they want. She dragged her heels at every step, but never stopped anyone, ever . . . “Even David’s teacher pressures her into accepting the inevitable, warning her David is falling behind thanks to “his peers with Pilots using their time more efficiently . . . It’s an optimizer. They get more out of their brains.” Eventually Val gives in. Not long after David gets his Pilot, which does help him at school though there are hints of problems to come, he (much to Val and Julie’s dismay) joins the army as part of a special program for Piloted recruits.

Tensions and divisions continue to rise in the family over the next few years go by. Julie gets a Pilot as well so as not to fall behind at work, while Val becomes one of the few teachers without one and is thus relegated to teaching the “Non-Piloted Students”, who have quickly become a minority. Meanwhile, Sophie (an NPS herself), as she ages into an older teen, joins the anti-Pilot movement, putting herself on the opposite side of her brother, who on his return from the army takes a job as an ambassador for the company that produces Pilots, even though his early problems have worsened.

Each of the characters gets their own POVs in a large number of chapters that vary greatly in length, with equally varied jumps in time between them, from an immediate chronological flow to a hop of weeks or months (sometimes many). David, thanks to his issue with the Pilot overstimulating him, has the most distinct and highly stylized voice:
standing on the landing . . . standing on the edge of the city, standing outside a door that was the only barrier between him and more noise more noise it was already spilling out under the door and through the windows. Noise to add to his noise noise on noise on noise … he smiled and drained his drink and said he needed another and made his escape and all the time his eyes were on the door the window the patterns of the crowd the songs the slight rattle in the bass notes from the speaker by the kitchen where he shoved his hands into the ice in the red cooler looking for another beer but also looking for the numbing cold for a moment numbing cold to numb his brain. [btw, most of his chapters are not so stylized]

While David goes through major life changes in terms of his choices/decisions, Sophie is the one whom we see change the most, thanks to her being so young when we meet her. While Pinsker presents the text version of an ensemble cast, if this is anyone’s story, I’d say it’s Sophies, and one of the true pleasures of the story is watching her blossom into selfhood, moving out from under the loving-but-overly-watchful dominance of her two mothers. With regard to their own POVs, I’ll confess that despite their clear differences, I had a harder time keeping their voices distinct, though that may be simply a matter of both of them being middle-aged adults. They certainly have different personalities and reactions to events.

While those events (David’s enlisting, Sophie’s seizures, Julie’s job requirements) are part and parcel of the cause-and-effect chain of plot points, at least as responsible if not more are their personal choices in how to respond to events. Pinsker has no interest in presenting perfect human beings here; all of them have their flaws, all of them can be prickly or worse, none of them are as consistently honest and transparent as they need to be to navigate these tricky shoals, and so they constantly end up in worse places than necessary had they only spoken more to each other, only trusted each other more. You can’t help but wince at some of their choices, yet you also can’t help but admit that you’ve probably made similarly bad-on-their-face choices at various times in your life (at least if you’re older than ten). The kind of choices you know are wrong, are bad, are going to lead down the wrong path, but some demon voice in you cajoles and convinces you that somehow (magic!) a twist will arise that will save you from yourself. It’s no spoiler to say that rarely occurs.

Meanwhile, this microcosm of a family can be extrapolated outward into the macrocosm of this new society created by the Pilot, as issues of transparency, trust, and bad choices are enacted on a wider scale. All of these more hidden layers occurring against a backdrop of more obvious concerns about the impact of such a device on society: inequality (as Julie muses, “There was never such thing as equally poor, someone always had less of one thing or more of another), discrimination against the differently abled, the way “progress” always seems to start as a personal choice but quickly becomes a requirement, the often corrupt ties between industry and government, what we as a country ask of our soldiers and what we do with them once they’ve sacrificed some part of themselves to meet our demands, the ways in which technology becomes, as Neal Postman put it, “mythic”, so that it quickly becomes immune to attempts to reign it in or strongly regulate it. And of course, beyond the society of the story itself, it’s easy to see how a novel that examines the impact of enhanced (and encouraged) “multi-tasking” and that via one character labels such activity “noise” can be applied to our own always on, always connected world.

We Are Satellites is a mostly successful work, though not, like its characters, without its flaws. At times I felt some of the themes/echoes were presented too bluntly, though I find I’m often more desirous of trusting the reader to make connections than a lot of the audience is, so mileage may certainly vary on that. Occasionally some sections read a bit dryly matter of fact, more reportage than narrative (this mostly occurred in the mothers’ POVs), though I want to emphasize this happened only in scattered sections, not across an entire chapter or more. Finally, the ending feels both a bit rushed and a bit too pat, somewhat in the family dynamics but mostly in the attempt to broaden the domestic novel into a more broadly societal one. I understand the need to make that broader jump, but it didn’t feel as well executed or polished as the exploration of the family both as individuals and as a unit (well, sometimes a unit). That said, We Are Satellites was certainly entertainingly engaging but equally as important, it also was thought provoking, showing that one needn’t create an entire panoply of futuristic devices or settings to write a science fiction novel that will stay in your head.

This was such a thought-provoking SciFi novel. Based in a near future where brain enhancing technology is available, We Are Satellites does a great job of exploring what this technology would do to our society in various situations. I thought the timeline of the book (crossing from when our youngest character was bout 5 until she was in her early adulthood) was a great choice that showed the longer-term effects of the new tech. Very character-driven, with well-done, casual LGBTQ+ representation. I wish there was a little more going on plot-wise, but overall had such a great time reading We Are Satellites!

In the near future, a new technology is available that makes your brain able to multitask and work faster. The two moms in the central story are at odds about it but give in when their son begs for one, because his classmates are leaving him behind.

They give in, even though it costs all of their savings. While his friends seem to find it easy to adapt to the new stimulation, he is never able to separate himself from "the noise." Not long after, he is recruited by the army, much to his mothers' chagrin.

Their daughter is ineligible because she has frequent seizures, and they are always trying different techniques and medications to deal with her epilepsy. As she gets older, she is more and more excluded as one of only a handful of people her age without the implant. She grows into an activist against the Pilots.

This is a deep exploration about new technologies and control from a bunch of different angles, and I found myself thinking about the characters and the different points of views after I finished it, which is why I rated it at 4 instead of 3 stars. I still need to read this author's prescient pandemic novel but this was a good introduction.

“Family was the shelter and the storm, both at once, an impossible thing that didn’t seem impossible.”

WE ARE SATELLITES is a thought-provoking near-future sci-fi novel about technology, neurodiversity, and family, reckoning with the secrets we keep from each other and the cost of not listening. The book is an intimate portrait of the Geller-Bradley family over three time periods: the two moms, Julie and Val, and their children, David and Sophie. A new technology emerges while the kids are in grade school: the Pilot, which is inserted into your brain and enhances your ability to pay attention and functionally multitask. Soon, Pilots become the norm, and the family becomes more and more divided by their different stances, alienated by how they each choose to exist and cope in a changing world.

Thoughts:
- The complicated family dynamics, as a whole and in each relationship, were probably the strongest part of the book for me; they felt achingly real
- The books is written from the perspectives of the four family members and I thought it work really well
- I loved the casual queer representation (sapphic moms, nonbinary and trans and queer side characters)
- I really appreciated how neurodiversity was addressed; the sections written from David’s perspective when he’s experiencing “noise” are immersive, enlightening, sometimes harrowing; Sophie’s journey is powerful and nuanced; and the moms’ choices/worries/interactions with their kids are imperfect, understandable, in progress
- The book is dedicated to “everyone who has ever been disbelieved about their own health” and you can feel that in the story
- I loved that the author makes Sophie an activist and highlights the importance of long-term grassroots organizing
- More books calling out corporations and capitalism and their destructive role in our medical system, please!
- Some of the writing felt a bit simplistic? Or maybe it’s just a straightforward book? Also some of the minor plot points felt sort of contrived to me

Overall a smart speculative novel with a loving, complex queer family at the heart. I’d definitely recommend it and I’m looking forward to reading more of Pinsker’s work. Thanks to Berkeley Publishing for the eARC!

Content warnings: addiction, physical injury/amputation (delightfully, no homophobia or transphobia!)

Set in the near future, We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker is a brilliant, thought-provoking sci-fi novel that explores the individual and social ramifications of a new brain enhancement implant.

It’s an intimate family portrait told from perspective of four family members. It follows two mothers and their son who opted to get a Pilot so he wouldn’t fall behind in school as well as their daughter who is ineligible as a candidate due to her epilepsy.

Spanning over the course of years, we grow up with the family and realize the complications of new brain enhancing technology alongside them. We see the growing rift between those who have Pilots and those who do not at school, the workplace, and even at home.

However, the story’s plot twist and resolution did feel rushed to me in the end, so I suppose my one complaint about this novel would be its uneven pacing.

All and all though, We Are Satellites is a poignant and well-grounded sci-fi that seamlessly integrates new technology that feels as real as its characters.

Interesting premise about technological body modifications and the social issues that come along with it. Good LGBTQ+ representation. Felt much more contemporary fiction than sci-fi, however, as the book is heavily character-driven and does not discuss the technology much. The writing was very YA (though I do not think the book is classified as such), which turned me off a bit. Would be good book for those looking to dip their toes into sci-fi.