Sabotage in space makes for a good mix of sci-fi, mystery, and people in mortal peril due to a significant limit of resources. The Deep Sky takes this mix of threads and puts them in the hands of Asuka, last picked as a member of this unique mission to send life to another planet in the hopes of saving humanity. As an alternate, Asuka struggles with a lot of questions as to her place in the crew and the ship, and even her relationship with herself and her family history.

The story was fast-paced, had good characters (even though in some regards it felt like they were talking at each other rather than to or with each other), and an underlying simmer of distrust. As a whole this was engaging, and Asuka carried the plot.

The Deep Sky is about a space colony mission to Planet X. Partway there a bomb goes off on the ship, threatening the mission and the crew onboard. Is the responsible person onboard, back on earth, something else entirely?

Ultimately, I feel like this debut didn’t live up to my expectations, the story is told with a non-linear timeline interspersed with flashbacks of the crew’s time in training for the mission. The start-stop pacing of the narrative onboard the ship dissolved any building tension and my lack of interest in the flashbacks meant the whole book came off boring. A highlight of the flashbacks was the larger worldbuilding, adding context about the state of the world at large and active terrorist group so but the training itself was just a lot of competition and mean girl type behavior.

The crew is largely made up of one-dimensional characters who can be summed up by words like “nice”, “cranky”, “smart”. I did appreciate the inclusivity of the cast, there are several trans characters and queer women. Asuka is the only character who gets really fleshed out but unfortunately her backstory mainly paints her in a bad light, a sullen character who expects loyalty and support from others without giving it in return. She gets only a small amount of growth over the course of the book and not enough to redeem her.

The blurb sounded extremely interesting to me when I requested an ARC, space survival thrillers are a favorite of mine. Unfortunately, the blurb didn’t make it clear that a huge trigger of mine (pregnancy) is a constant theme in the book and I would have DNF in the first chapter if this wasn’t an ARC. As such, it’s hard for me to give an impartial review of this book since my own personal reading was colored by my strong personal feelings about pregnancy. I also don’t understand why there was never any discussion about how the pregnancy requirement was universally accepted by the crew. The mission required the crew to sacrifice their bodily autonomy, I’d expect that to generate at least some complicated feelings and likely dysphoria in some of the trans crew members. It also doesn’t make sense to have so many of the crew pregnant at once, especially in leadership roles, when maternity leave is an impossible luxury.

Within two pages, my first question was "is this a debut" - the answer was yes. I kept going, but chapter 2 became an information dump. Then chapter 3 was only one paragraph, but it was slow and calm, and then chapter 4 literally throws us into action. Overall, it's just very jarring. Stopped at 3%.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron for the ARC.

TLDR: A long winded story about one dimensional women who all want to be pregnant, told from the perspective of an unlikeable, identity obsessed girl with an inferiority complex and no character growth. The sci-fi elements were extremely lacking and I was unconvinced that this book benefitted from being set in space, other than to make it more unique in marketing. The pregnancy stuff was virtually irrelevant to the story and seemed only to be included because the characters were women. It read more like YA to me than adult and struggles with consistency in POV.

I really didn't like this book. I think the primary reason for this was that this didn't work as a sci-fi or thriller/mystery. The extent of the sci-fi in this novel is that they're stated to be in a space ship, have augmented reality, and some bots.

There is very little tension or build up in the story and the culprit is super obvious. The plot is extremely slow, and if you've ever been the alternate for a team you can basically guess how the selection academy went for Asuka without having to read anything.

I liked the idea of the augmented reality overlay on the ship, but it felt like it was used to avoid needing to describe space and technology elements.. Everything having more than a basic a science understanding to mention happens off page.

Another problem is the characters. The main character's entire personality is her angst over being mixed race and having been the alternate choice for Japan. She has zero character growth and is very unlikeable. 12 year old Asuka is the exact same as 21/31ish year old Asuka. She is the kind of person who puts ZERO effort into her relationships and then is hurt/offended when people don't care deeply about her: Not enjoyable to read about.

The rest of the characters are one dimensional and aren't very well developed. In fact, for this 80 person crew, we only meet around 10. The rest just don't really exist at all. Relationships, interactions, and dialogue between characters are often abrupt and leas nowhere.

I highly disliked the way women are portrayed. We have women who basically instantly cave under pressure, fight amongst themselves, can only be motivated in the end by the thought of their future offspring, make poor impulsive decisions, and are portrayed as being flawed/highly disliked/problematic if they aren't motherly/kind or constantly put on that mask. Also, everyone just is cool with having to get pregnant and have kids? Not one single person who isn't super thrilled?

The writing seemed to struggle with clarity and whether or not it wanted to be third person limited, stream of consciousness, or third omniscient. There were more than a few instances where pronoun use made this difficult to understand and even some where the author even had to clarify with parentheses.

I kept waiting for a big, epic reveal/twist that just never materialized. If you like books about women and diversity for the sake of women and diversity, you might like this, but if you're looking for sci-fi or strong character development I would continue to keep browsing.

I really enjoyed this mystery wrapped in sci-fi!

I just reviewed The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei. #NetGalley

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for granting me access to The Deep Sky!

Space crew in a deep space mission to a distant planet, but come to find out that there is a traitor in their midst?

AMOGUS

Some possible minor spoilers ahead!

I enjoyed this read and its use of a nonlinear narration.
Asuka is an alt for this deep space mission to Planet X and a lot of the time, Asuka is reminded that she was the last picked for the mission. During training, Asuka often felt as if she was out of place with all the other candidates because everybody else had done some great achievement and was recognized for it. I felt for Asuka and her struggles to not feel like an imposter and her sense of identity.
I was constantly trying to "suss out" who the traitor/imposter was, but I was not able to figure it out by the reveal. The relationships that all the characters have with each other are interesting and I did tear up a bit reading about the letters that Asuka's mother sent her. I did however, wanted a little bit more out of the ending. I thought it ended a bit abruptly, especially after everything that happened, ending a bit sooner than I would've liked. I did enjoy this book though and would love to read more sci-fi books about space and exploration!

I personally couldn't get into this book and stopped around 20%. I personally could not get into the plot and didn't really like the characters. That is probably just me, though, and I expect some others will really enjoy this book!

Earth, in an ill defined future, is beset by rising sea levels and political strife. The worlds richest woman starts a program to send a select group of women to Planet X to give humanity a new start. While on the way, there’s an explosion, which is sabotage, setting the ship off course, and is the catalyst for the events of The Deep Sky.

A combination science fiction novel and mystery, The Deep Sky has a great premise that to me wasn’t fulfilled. I really wanted to like the book. For some reason, the characters for me were just not engaging, and to some degree seemed interchangeable, though Asuka , the main character was reasonably well developed. There was something about the writing style that just left me unable to really care about what was happening in the story, and I had progressive difficulty in finishing the book. Additionally, for me, despite there being an all female crew, the use of preferred pronouns in the narrative, but not in conversations, was, for me, confusing.

My thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for an ARC of The Deep Sky.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

I really tried hard to get into this, and was pretty successful for the first half of the novel. I appreciated the new world, the mission, and learning the characters' backstories. The DAR was (and is) a great idea, and it added to the story. Somewhere in the back half of the story my interest started to wane, and it went downhill fast. That's not to say I didn't like the book -- I did. I just feel that the promise exhibited in the first half of the story didn't fully come into being.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to both Flatiron Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of The Deep Sky.

Expected publication July 18, 2023

It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. One or more of the crew members are saboteurs.

There were many things I liked about The Deep Sky. I loved everything about the description and was engrossed from the first page. I also loved the diversity of the characters. The complex relationships between all the crew members held my interest.

On the downside, I was not terribly fond of the nonlinear timeline, which felt a bit clunky to me. I found the flashbacks to be distracting and even a little repetitive. About halfway into the book, I found myself losing interest. It started feeling as though The Deep Sky was trying to say too much and I started losing track of the bones of the story.

Having said that, I have to say I really liked the perfect, yet flawed Asuka. The Deep Sky is an impressive first book by Yume Kitasei.

In "The Deep Sky", Yume Kitasei has crafted a world where the world is riddled with frequent disasters and conflict, and the geopolitical powers have agreed to send their best candidates on a space expedition to Planet X in hopes of finding a new home for the human race. Asuka Hoshino-Silva is one of the women on board The Phoenix, selected last as an Alternate to help the rest of the crew with jobs when needed. Although she grew up in the U.S., she's there as a representative of Japan, having trained with the rest of the women in the EvenStar program that prepared them all physically and mentally for their journey.

The novel immediately begins when an explosion goes off during a minor project, killing a number of other crew members. The resulting confusion and suspicions give insight into the state of Planet Earth - the conflict between countries, especially between the US and China; and the number of protesting groups that have emerged, including Save Mother Earth (SME) which Asuka's own mother is a part of. As everyone on board attempts to figure out what happened and get their spaceship back on course, Asuka is pulled into efforts to identify who on the ship is the traitor - and her own identity and background is called into question.

I have to say this is an ambitious debut novel, and there was much I liked about it. Kitasei has crafted a future that feels scarily possible, and the extent of technology on the ship doesn't feel far off with the progress made in AI at present. There's an impressive amount of detail and thought went into just how something like The Phoenix would operate, including staggering sleeping and awake shifts between the crew; having a large bank of donor sperm so that the crew on board would be able to reproduce; and the capacities of Alpha, the ship's AI system. The novel also jumps between the past and present, giving clarity to Asuka's relationship with her family and her motivation to join the program from her deceased brother Luis, to the complex relationship between all the crew members given their time and experience in Evenstar. Even the thought to have characters that were gender fluid and be known as "they" was something I appreciated as well.

However, I have to say that it's possible there's just too much in this novel. Between building out a completely fictional world and brand new technology, to crafting a whole new geopolitical situation for Earth, to a complicated thread of whodunit on board the ship - I personally felt as though the novel didn't have a clear focus and lost track of characters and backstories several times. There are too many frequent jumps in time period and setting to the point that it feels jarring, and in the course of Asuka's attempts to figure out who or what is sabotaging their mission, a lot of red herrings that ruined the suspense of the novel.

I think readers will enjoy the complex and carefully crafted world in "The Deep Sky", but I struggled with the plot line and execution.

This book has lodged itself in my brain for a long time to come. What a gorgeous and thrilling debut book! It’s a gripping mystery, a nuanced exploration of what it means to survive, and is somehow both haunting and generous in spirit. It is a radiant and clever sort of novel, the author showing us that she not only understands the elements of story-telling but also the human spirit.

Kitasei weaves a beautiful narrative that gives the reader a little bit of everything: drama, the looming politics of our future world, the heartbreak only family can cause, the quiet devastation of estranged friends, and of course, sabotage and betrayal. What’s truly impressive is that none of these feel dismissed or glossed over, Kitasei is able to give everything the weight it truly deserves, while also keeping up excellent pacing and a plot with skillful twists and reveals.

Thank you very much for the ARC!

Asuka is an alternate, a jack of all trades and master of none, on The Phoenix’s maiden voyage — a flight to a distant star with no return.

She’s battling near crippling self doubt, struggling to find meaning in her new life among the stars, and trying and failing to not think about her mother and dead brother left behind on a slowly dying Earth.

So when a bomb goes off on the ship, killing three and knocking it off its very narrow trajectory, suspicions rise among the crew and its left to the alternate, to Asuka to find all the disparate threads of the preceding events and weave them into a semblance of motive, opportunity and means.

Yume Kitasei's The Deep Sky, had me from the description, truly, I love me some sci-fi thriller, the stakes are always highest in the silent, cold, distant cosmos. And better yet, add a closed circle mystery?!? 👌🏾

Tensions ratcheting up as more and more of the mission falls apart, as suspicions rise?!?

Delicious!

But what really got me though, and kept me through these four hundred or so pages, was Asuka.

As much as this was a thriller, and it delivered on that, it was also like literary fiction, in its introspection, in its character study.

Seeing her life unfolded through flashbacks and seeing how much she grew over the days of the investigation, gave this story such heart.

I recommend this one highly!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

[Blurb goes here]

Didn't enjoyed it, I really wanted to.

Asuka is the "Alternate" on the starship EvenStar. As her title entails, she's the one person from the crew to do odd jobs here and there. She was the last person to be selected to travel to Planet X. A new home world for the human race. When on a space walk with Kat, to better inspect "a blurred" shape on the outer hull of the ship (one that isn't clear, not even when using bots to go and inspect it, mind you), an explosion renders her unconscious, and kills Kat. The sudden detonations takes the EvenStar out of course.

The captain is dead, the new one enlists Asuka to investigate. There's a saboteur among the eighty crew members.

This seemingly amazing premise turns out to be a story into the absurd. I mean, the tech's there to find what really happened, but each time it is used to try and solve the mystery, "somehow," it does not work. The ship can't get back on track because of "reasons". "It was meant to go straight," one crew member will argue. "The course correction engines where not design for this," another will say. Rendering the saboteur's goal a moot point.

The characters are mostly paper thin. Asuka which is fleshed out through flashback after flashback, turns out to be a not so likable character, one that can hold a grudge until the end of times.

About 50% into the book, it becomes obvious who the saboteur is...obvious to the reader, that is, while the crew remains oblivious to the impossible to miss fact.

The flashbacks, meant to give life to each of the main characters, turn stale and repetitive way too soon.

Seventy-something out of the eighty crew members, are just invisible ghosts to the author, and in turn, to the reader.

If there's one good thing to say about this story, is that it is inclusive, pronouns flying all around.

It pains me to say that this is one book that I found really hard to finish, specially since, after reading the blurb, my expectations went through the roof. Yeap, "...the harder they fall."

Thank you for the advanced copy!

Thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for sharing this ARC!

The Deep Sky is a sci-fi thriller debut from Yume Kitasei that navigates a tragedy among a deep-space crew and its aftermath. This book does contain a non-linear storyline, navigating between flashbacks and the present investigation. I appreciated the inclusiveness of the characters and felt that learning the backstory to the situation helped lend to the drama of whether or not the investigation would be solved. Overall, I enjoyed The Deep Sky and would recommend it to others.

I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.

This is more than a thriller about a sabotaged generation ship. It is a story of people who spent their entire adolescence being taught to backstab one another learning how to support each other again. This story will hit you in the feels, I promise. Former silicon valley kids, if you’re out there, pick this one up!
I grew up in an environment full of overachievers, in which better than average equated to the bottom of the barrel, at least in your peers’ eyes. For this reason, I particularly enjoyed the flashback chapters of the book. They were what made me empathize with Asuka, cheer for her, and stay up until 2 AM because I needed to know what was going to happen.
I loved the book’s message about hope and its uniquely nuanced take on closure. None of the conflicts felt like they wrapped up too quickly or conveniently, yet the conclusion was emotionally satisfying all the same.
I also enjoyed the book’s usage of nature as symbolism. The bird symbolism may have been a bit heavy handed (As a reader, I prefer not to be spoonfed), but there are other subtler metaphors that I enjoyed. I know when a review starts discussing metaphors and symbolism, there is a subset of people who think “eek, purple prose” and run the other way, but I promise the writing in this book isn’t flowery. It’s broadly approachable and I think it will appeal to readers with a wide variety of tastes.
Also, I have to commend this book for its inclusivity in recognizing that cis women aren’t the only people who can get pregnant.

[Review to be posted to Goodreads 30 days before publication, per publisher's request]

1 star, trigger warnings not disclosed

THE DEEP SKY
by Yume Kitasei

As a personal preference, these types of books are not the types that I like to read. Deeply disheartened that the trigger warnings were not disclosed in the blurb.

**Really a 3.75 star**
Deep Sky, by Yumi Kitasei, is a soi-fi mystery story. The book takes place on a space ship bound for a planet (referred to only as planet x) with a large number of flashbacks which take us through the life of the main (& point of view) character, Asuka.
Asuka is a character who is full of self-doubt. Referred to as the 'Alt,' she is the crew member with no particular assignment on the ship and so when there is an explosion that might be intentional, she is the one called to investigate what actually happened. In the course of the story, we find out that the ship was sent off because of the increasing problems of climate change and depopulation. The reduced population is never, to my mind, adequately explained and because of the nature of the story and that did take me out of the story a bit.
The important characters of this tale include a select number of the crew of the ship who Asuka used to be close with and the ship's AI (Alpha). The cast is inclusive as far as LGBTQ+ individuals and race since in the story they are drawn from around the world. While this would likely be nice for members of those groups to see, they didn't seem to have a large amount of differentiation between them and even the ultimate culprit was a surprise more because of how little e knew about them than because of any misdirection that they attempted in the course of the story.
Overall, it isn't a bad story and it grabbed my attention usually, but I didn't feel like it was an absolute must read. If you like inclusive stories with female protagonists and mystery you will enjoy it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
#TheDeepSky #Netgalley

I was excited by the premise of this novel, but I found the beginning very slow and that made it hard to get invested in the story. The writing was decent, but it did feel a bit more like a YA level novel than an adult one.