Jack Cheng

Alex Petroski, you're my hero. This book has been compared to Wonder, which I found unrealistic, and The Curious Incident of the Dog..., which I didn't like. See You in the Cosmos is so much better.

Alex, an 11 year old boy who loves rockets and his dog Carl Sagan, named after his hero, inadvertently goes on a road trip when he tries to attend SHARF (Southwest High Altitude Rocket Festival) to fly his own rocket in the competition.

Alex is a very independent and resilient kid, who finds a way show more to do what he wants to do, even without any parental guidance. His Mom seems unavailable, his brother is in another city, and his father is dead.

We don't find out what's going on with his Mom till later in the book, although we know something is not right, because Alex does all the cooking, and his mother watches a lot of tv and doesn't take a lot of interest in his life.

Alex's optimistic and creative attitude win him friends along the way to SHARF. After SHARF, the trip continues with two men he met on the way to the festival, one of whom is currently practicing a vow of silence. They visit Las Vegas, where Alex finds that his family is larger than he thought, and then on to LA, before he goes back to home to Colorado.

The novel is told in the form of an audio journal Alex is making on his iPod. He plans to launch his rocket containing the iPod into outer space, in hopes that aliens will someday find it and learn about humans.

There is so much to like in this story of family, friendship, creativity and bravery. It moved me more than anything I have read in a long time, and it's a middle grade novel. Go figure. show less

Eleven-year-old Alex is obsessed with all things astronomy and is building a rocket on which he plans to include a "golden iPod" full of his recordings for extraterrestrial beings. Alex and his dog (named Carl Sagan after Alex's hero) board a train in Colorado and head to New Mexico for a rocket-launching festival, and their adventures begin. As Alex embarks on the road trip of a lifetime, he makes friends and learns truths about his fractured family.

This book was a compelling read, with show more good writing and wonderful characters. I absolutely fell in love with Alex and think other readers will as well. The supporting cast is also lovely -- unique yet entirely recognizable. The story goes in directions I didn't expect and is a roller coaster of emotions along the way. Being written as "recordings" was an unusual way of presenting the story but it works for this particular plot and doesn't feel in any way gimmicky. The conclusion was a little more open-ended that I would have liked, and those who like neatly tied resolutions might be disappointed.

That all being said, I'd be rather hesitant to recommend this book to a young reader. The fact that Alex travels alone, stays with strangers, and manages to come out of that all relatively unscathed is unfortunately rather unlikely. I'd be terrified that susceptible readers might think it was a good idea to go off on their own. There are other rather heavy elements in this book including mental illness, abuse and neglect, and bodily injury, to name a few. Such dark subject matter may not go over well with every reader. I almost feel like this book is better for adults, especially as some of the humor seems to come out of the reader understanding when Alex is naively wrong. At the least I think caregivers might want to read this with or alongside their child to help them work through the more difficult topics. show less

children's middlegrade fiction - Andy Zhou (whose grandparents are visiting from Shanghai) and best friend Cindy are about to start middleschool (6th grade, in Detroit-area Michigan). Cindy's new-hair/first-impressions scheme doesn't go well for him, and he soon develops a compulsive habit of pulling out hairs from the back of his head, but he enjoys being involved in tech crew while Cindy scores a lead dance role in the school's musical version of Lord of the Flies, and he navigates a new show more friendship with Chaldean classmate Jameel Zebari (a Christian Iraqi-American who loves reptiles and anime) while maintaining his friendship with Cindy, who is going through some issues of her own.

I like the complexity of all the things happening around Andy, bringing up distant memories of anxiety over not wanting to call any negative attention to oneself and being generally unsure of how one stands with anyone else, plus with Andy he's got a spidey-sensitivity for anti-Asian comments and microaggressions, plus an aging grandfather who is clearly having health issues but who refuses to see a doctor. Really well done, love the illustrations too, and that the author put some of his own experiences (repetitive pulling hair behavior and microaggressions) into this realistically complicated story.

2024 Nov bingo challenge: family dinner, takes place over Sept-Feb covering halloween, thanksgiving, christmas, lunar new years. show less

I loved this book so much. I love that the main character was biracial. I love that it was incredibly geeky and STEM-positive. I love the epistolary format of the novel, which is one of my favorite storytelling techniques. I love that the book tackled some really adult issues, trusting that the target audience is mature enough to understand things like mental illness and infidelity.

But most of all, I love Alex, the precocious and charming 11-year-old (but 13 in responsibility years!) show more protagonist. He sets off with the goal of firing a homemade rocket into space, and has been recording messages to aliens on his iPod, which he plans on attaching to the rocket. After his rocket fails, he continues using his iPod to record messages. Alex is optimistic, resourceful, independent, and frighteningly naive. His best friend is his dog, Carl Sagan, who he named after his hero.

The book spans his trip from Colorado to Albuquerque for the Southwest High-Altitude Rocket Festival (SHARF), and then to Las Vegas, and then Los Angeles, before returning home to Colorado. He makes friends and finds out family secrets along the way, and in the end is forced to confront some hard truths about his life.

I won't lie -- I was crying by the end of the book. I wanted to give Alex (all the characters, really, but especially Alex) the biggest hug -- what he would call a "real hug".

This book reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time because of the young unreliable narrator, and having to read between the lines to figure out just what was going on.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. show less