I wanted to love this so much more than I actually did. When I received the ARC and was promised a queer sci-fi I thought this would be a 5-star read for sure. While it delivered the queer love interests and a diverse cast to boot, there was almost no science fiction or romance here. It is set in space but that’s where the science ends. The romance felt extremely YA, which is fine, just not what I was expecting. There just wasn’t a ton of chemistry despite the very cool sounding romantic premise. Overall this book was fine and I’m not sad I read it, but I don’t know that I would re-read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Spice: 1 - open door, vague/euphemistic language

This was just a fine, cute book. For me, it wasn’t particularly memorable but it was definitely fun!

This was my first sapphic romance read and I loved it! Loved the relationship between the MCs - Cleo and Billie, it started off as a love story between a human and a hologram. It has a lovely cast of likeable and diverse characters. The only thing I didn’t like was that all the characters were adults, but it felt more like a YA novel. But it didn’t bother me as much because I love YA books.

The dark matter and powers aspect of the story gave me the feels of a CW show, kinda giving me ‘The Flash’ vibes. Also going to Proxima Centauri B to live over there as Earth was dying gave me major ‘Lost in Space’ feels. I always love stories where they try to find other planets to live on, so this was right up my alley. But nothing beats home, nothing beats Earth, which the MC Cleo also realizes by the end.

Everything works out and will be fine as long as you are with the ones whom you love and here, Cleo had her closest friends with her while they were all propelled into space accidentally. Also liked the suspense/mystery plotline of showing what happened twenty years ago when the entire crew disappeared.

So, if you’re looking for a science fantasy rom-com, do check this out! Its got a dash of everything with even some adventure and mystery.

A Solid 3 stars.

Admittedly it took me awhile to get through, like months, but mostly because I was struggling to read with my eyes lately.

The good news was the book was funny and snarky and it was really easy to pick up after putting it down for days at a time.

I loved the concept, a sapphic ROM com set in space with interdimensional travel and cool magical abilities? Cool!

The romance was..meh I did not feel like it had much substance, and (spoiler) I wish the hologram was somehow controlled by Billie somehow because I personally felt a little weirded out by it all.

The novel was very YA coded until the second to last chapter when it was decidedly adult.

This was an alright read for me.
Thanks to netgalley for the advanced copy.

Emily Hamilton’s The Stars Too Fondly is a fun sapphic scifi debut with some flaws. It started strong. I enjoyed the story and the characters. However, I found myself putting it down when we got to the unknown narrator interstitials. The bits of communication between the crew members who disappeared didn’t bother me, but the unknown, omniscient narrator who popped in annoyed me and broke my reading flow. That’s very much a me issue, and my frustration is as much with myself as with the book. At a certain point, the unknown narrator becomes known, but I still struggled with focusing on the story because the font changed. It’s too late to say long story short, but basically the way the storytelling was structured and formatted worked against my ability to stay in the story. Not everyone has my unruly brain, so give this a try.

Emily Hamilton isn’t afraid to go big or to go weird in The Stars too Fondly. That was my favorite thing about the book. It’s an accidental interstellar roadtrip and an across the multiverse love story. The found family is strong, but not conflict free, and the story is pretty cozy, but not without tension. There were moments when I had to remind myself that the characters are not teenagers, and then moments that handled complex emotional situations with maturity. For reasons that will become clear, the romance is slow burn, but it isn’t entirely closed door. I think this would make a great full cast audiobook, and I think the storytelling issues that bothered me so much would be less noticeable. I’m interested to see where Emily Hamilton goes.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Harper Voyager and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

Wow. This was amazing.

This is a blend of space adventure and sapphic rom-com that hits all the right notes. This is a heartfelt story that will make you laugh, cry, and believe in the power of love and friendship across the galaxy. If your brain needs to feel like you've gotten an accepting hug, this book is for you.

Cleo and her friends accidentally commandeer a spaceship that was previously involved with the disappearance of 200+ colonists looking for a new world. The mystery of the vanished crew, the shock of the unexpected seven-year journey, and the moody hologram of the former captain set the stage for a thrilling story.

The character dynamics in this book are its strongest suit. Cleo’s evolving relationship with Billie is beautifully portrayed. The found family aspect is executed flawlessly, celebrating platonic and romantic love in its many forms. Conflicts among the crew are resolved in mature and satisfying ways, making their bond all the more compelling. I love these smart dummies so much.

Diversity and inclusivity are woven into the story. The characters’ diverse backgrounds and identities are represented with care and authenticity. It’s a joy to see such a wide range of experiences and perspectives celebrated and accepted.

Hamilton’s writing is beautiful and the themes of acceptance and love brought a tear to my eyes so many times. This is a rare feat, making this book even more special to me. There are darker themes here, but the positive and hopeful tone is uplifting. My brain really needed the sugar-sweet goofy romance.

However, there is a minor flaw in the audiobook narration. The voices for Ros and Abe are too similar for me and I have to wait to hear who is actually speaking. While this initially distracts, it becomes less noticeable as the story progresses. Despite this, Ortiz’s narration overall is wonderful.

This is a gorgeous and moving debut that excels in its portrayal of found family and diverse, inclusive love. Hamilton has crafted a story that is both entertaining and emotionally satisfying. I felt so content and happy after the last sentence. Cozy sci-fi fans looking for excellent characters will adore this.

There is just something about queer, sci-fi novels that JUST HIT DIFFERENT

This book started with maybe the most terrifying concept I could possibly imagine... accidentally turning on a spaceship and being hurled into space for 7 years and there's NOTHING you can do to stop it or turn around... Genuinely, it gave me anxiety.

Once we got past that initial anxiety attack, this book was full of such interesting issues and concepts. The idea of homesickness, friendships being tested in such an environment, etc.

I enjoyed each of our characters. I thought the plot was so interesting. The conversations of love, of loss, of identity, of purpose, it was all great.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is into queer love stories and/or who is into sci-fi novels. It. Just. Hits.

This was a fun and entertaining science fiction/fantasy story involving the accidental heist and launch of a space ship between a group of friends trying to figure out what happened to the original crew who vanished 20 years ago. We get a lot of quirkiness, cute and cozy moments, and fall in love with a found family. The character building was perfect and the storyline was entertaining and easy to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Contains SPOILERS:

I’ve been in a reading slump and this book got me out of it. I had a smaller hiccup at the beginning (where there were TikToks in 2061, which feels a bit optimistic, considering nothing 40+ years old stays relevant with youths), but the story itself made up for that bit.

I love the blend of scientific and basically magical explanations of dark matter that became the solution for faster than light travel, first of all. It was fun and a bit creepy.

The characters were all very individual and I loved them all. I would have liked more of Chloe and Kaleisha’s friendship, but the amount of individual dynamics was a lot to juggle, and primary relationship was that of Chloe and Billie, and I would have read a whole other book of the original Billie falling in love with a Chloe that already knows and loves her, if things had played out differently.

Overall: 4.5 stars, rounded up for the rating system.

SAPPHIC SCIFI WITH A HOLOGRAM SIGN ME THE HECK UP! HAPPY PRIDE YALL! I am so happy this book exists and cannot wait for the world to fall in love with this book like i did

This book absolutely took me by surprise by how quickly I was locked in and completely captivated. It is easily going onto my favorite reads of the year list because of its perfect balance of action, romance, and the supernatural.

There was never a dull moment and Vico Ortiz made every character feel so recognizably different and so true to their personalities. I cannot recommend this book more and I implore you to give it a shot!

A MUST read if you’re into:
🪐 found family
👽 yearning and pining
🪐 space travel
👽 celebrity crushes

3.5 stars rounded down! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC.

The Stars Too Fondly follows four friends doing an amateur investigation into what happened to the Providence I launch that would take 200+ souls to a new planet. Earth is dying and the mission was supposed to be the hope for humanity. Cleo and her friends accidentally launch the dormant rocket and shoot off on their own space journey while struggling with new powers and the increasingly horrific mystery of the disappearances.

I really wanted to like this book and have been trying to read more sci-fi, especially queer sci-fi. While I think the characters were fun and the friendship between them was the main focus, the mystery and subsequent reveal kind of took a lot away from my enjoyment. Maybe I should just stop giving sci-fi a chance, and that's not to say the book was THAT bad. It truly wasn't. Maybe I just like more explanations and lore instead of small inferences to what the dark matter engine is and what the "Other Place" is. If it's explained more, I must have missed it.

I really like this one. The author does some interesting things with narrative format that I didn't love at first but actually became a feature by the end. The book switches between Cleo's perspective, archival documents, and some omniscent third person perspective and does so fairly frequently and without any context in the beginning. Complicating matters, the third person perspective exclusively refers to the characters by their last name -- so in the beginning this was quite confusing, especially as you're learning the full cast of characters. But as the book progresses the different perspectives make sense for how they add to the narrative development and the reveal about who the omniscient perspective is is excellent and the archival documents are an interesting way of conveying important backstory.

I thought the book read a little young at first. Cleo is pret-ty annoying at times and a lot of the early fights the friends get into felt quite immature at times. I read the acknowledgements and the author noted that they started writing this story when they were 22 and that really showed in the book. They felt way more like early 20s than late 20s to me. And a lot of the early exposition feels a little heavy handed. But I came around on Cleo and I loved Kaleisha and Ros (especially their journey to learn their new powers). And I loved Billie the hologram from the first page she shows up.

I really liked the central mystery and felt invested in figuring it out. The central romance is a leeeeetle insta-love-y but that's also sort of the point in this book. At it's core its a fun sci-fi space romp with a dash of mystery and a side of romance and it's just a fun time.

Hamilton’s novel is a fun, friend-filled space romp where four STEM-affiliated Queer friends in their late 20s take an abandoned spaceship, infamous for its disaster where its crew disappeared, for a ride. Along the way our main character, Cleo, falls in love with the AI representation of Captain Lucas, the face of the failed mission, Cleo and her friends develop strange powers, and the mysterious disappearance of the 200+ crew investigated.

The sci-fi element leans more to the soft side than hard, with enough explanation given to physics and technology used in the story without going into full jargon and some topics (e.g., falling in love with an AI, climate catastrophe on Earth) handled lightly. Those that favor more hard sci-fi and tough, moral and ethical dilemmas may not enjoy this aspect, but it suited me fine, as the characters and their relationships are the heart of the story.

Man I really wanted to like this book. The mystery set up in which the crew of the Providence I all disappeared before their mission to save the earth is fantastic. However, that fun momentum did not carry through the book. I think the first thing that threw me off was how our core cast was written, there was just something about their dialogue that made them feel like teenagers. It made the characters and by extension their relationships feel less mature. What I feel like was the major downfall of this book was that it couldn't decide if it wanted to be an epic fantasy space story, like The Locked Tomb series, or a sci-fi romance, like Winter's Orbit. Straddling the line between these two genres meant that the characters and the story felt underdeveloped. I personally think that they should have leaned into the romance aspect because Cleo and Billie were supposed to be the core of this story and I didn't feel any strong emotions for them. This is the author's first book though so hopefully they improve and I get to enjoy their second release.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Scifi mystery with a group of young adults accidentally launched into space and attempting to solve a mystery (and survive.

Decades ago a private company was set to launch 200+ people, crew and civilians, into space to find a new beginning for humanity. Instead there was a flash and everyone on board the ship disappeared. A year later the enigmatic engineer goes missing in a suspected suicide.

Now four friends are exploring the ship when the brush of a finger sends them hurtling into space on a trajectory they can't stop. Then a hologram loaded with all the memories of the ship's captain pops up.

It's a bit in the weeds for me with the science side of it, but the characters are likable and interesting enough that I didn't want to stop reading.

The Stars Too Fondly is such a cute queer cozy story with found family and adventure. I recommend this for fans of sci fi.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

Cleo and her friends sneak on board a spaceship on a mission to figure out why everyone aboard the Providence disappeared into thin air 20 years ago. The original crew had been tasked with traveling to Proxima Centauri in hopes of finding a new planet for Earth dwellers to call home. However, this group of present-day young adults manage to accidentally fire up the spaceship and the course is set for the same destination as the original Providence crew 20 years ago. Fortunately Cleo and her friends all seem to be capable of operating this spaceship and finding ways to survive the 7+ year trek to Proxima Centauri, though it helps that the ship’s hologram has taken on the form and memories of Billie (the previous captain). They must work together to problem-solve their way out of this long journey while also locating the missing crew and passengers.

Hamilton’s debut is a wild journey through space packed with queer, snarky characters that readers will instantly adore. (Seriously, the banter is SO GOOD.) This book is very character-driven and it focuses a lot more on the relationships between the current crew members and the burgeoning romance between Cleo and our ship’s hologram, Billie. If “insta-love” and “literally-cannot-touch-her” sapphic romance vibes are your jam, this is a great time! This book is marketed as both a space odyssey and sapphic rom-com, but it felt very much like a YA space romance for me (minus the one very spicy intimate scene near the end that was definitely adult). Overall, I enjoyed this read! The writing felt a bit immature at times (RE: the YA-feel of our new adult characters) and the first half was a bit of a drag for me, but the pacing picks up after a fun plot twist and there’s a tidy resolution by the end of the novel. If any of this sounds like what you’re looking for, check out this book! I’m looking forward to seeing what else Hamilton comes up with in the future.

When I picked up this book i was SOOOOO excited for a sapphic sci-fi adventure romance. I almost got it. Most of this book is adorable. that's my main way to describe it. Every character is adorable, the romance is adorable, but it feels a lot younger than an adult book. I would say this reads very YA with some adult themes. The writing felt a little disjointed at times with the perspective changes and a good amount of this book is spent with people just talking and watching 90's movies.

Overall i thought this was a fun read, love all the diversity and the science-y talk about dark matter, but a lot of things just left me wanting.

complimentary copy of this book was given through NetGalley but all thoughts are my own.

Thank you so much to Harper Voyager for sending me the Netgalley widget for THE STARS TOO FONDLY. This review is entirely my own thoughts and opinions based on the early copy I read.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

THE STARS TOO FONDLY is a wonderfully queer Sci-Fi romance about a group of friends who find themselves being launched into space. Twenty years ago, humanity was supposed to take it's first jump into deep space travel and attempt to colonize an exo-planet. But the day of the launch, something went terribly wrong. In a flash of light, the entire crew went vanished. Now, Cleo and her friends are determined to find out what happened. They sneak into the abandoned launch base and onto the space ship. While investigating the craft, the engine suddenly starts up and kidnaps them to space. Now they must work together, along with a snide hologram modeled after the ship's lost captain, Billy—in order to rescue themselves from space AND find out what happened to the original crew. It's a stellar mix of space adventure, sapphic rom-com, and mysteries abound

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

I really enjoyed this book. It was way more mystery/space adventure than rom-com, more than I expected which is bonus for me! I love a good adventure tale full of mysteries that need solving. Every member of Cleo's group of friends is lovable and relatable. There is depth to every single character, flaws and inadequacies that make them so loveable and heartwarming. Their relationship dynamics are a privilege to watch as they all learn to cope with the insane and find their strengths amongst the stars. Cleo and Billy's banter and growing to love each other was so much fun to watch.

I will say that the characters did give off a vibe of being younger than their 27+ years of age. The story itself read more like a YA SciFi and less of an NA one. But honestly, I was so invested in the plot and the mysteries around what happened to the original crew and what was happening with Cleo and the gang, that I ended up not caring too much. I'm a regular YA reader so It didn't bother me too much—except when the spicy scene appeared. I got thrown for a bit of a loop there. Additionally, since the writing was more YA level, that did mean the plot was a bit on the more predictable side (I literally guessed every big reveal), but honestly, again, this book was just so much fun that I didn't mind.

If you're looking for a fun read that is still heartwarming, def pick this one up!