To the Moon and Back: A Novel

Real Rating: 2.75* of five

The Publisher Says: One young woman’s relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the people she loves most in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging, and family.

My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.

Steph Harper is on the run. When she was six, her mother, Hannah, fled an abusive husband—with Steph and her younger sister, Kayla, in tow—to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as show more far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: To say I abandoned this read is to do the read a disservice. It was a decent coming-of-age novel by the time I quit at the beginning of chapter sixteen. I got no frisson from it.

I really wanted to love it, but did not. You might resonate to it where I did not.

Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster requires a payment of $14.99 for the ebook. Others will like it more than I did. show less

Reese's picks are hit or miss for me, and this one was more in the miss category. A young woman dreams of being an astronaut, but her mother's story derails that dream early. Later, she does follow her dream, but the underlying trauma that affected her family finally comes to light. Additionally, she needs to deal with her sexuality and come to terms with it. Lots of info about the space program.
I enjoyed the ending, but thought the book could have been shorter.

Like so many books these days, To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage needed a good edit. A well-written story about Steph, a gay, Cherokee woman who wants to be an astronaut more than anything else, is drowning in extraneous details, wandering tangents, and unnecessary internal musings. Readers willing to sift through the excess will find an excellent story about belonging, family secrets, sisters, and an interesting slice of US history.

Review of eGalley

In the dark of night, five-year-old Steph Harper and her younger sister, Kayla, are taken from Texas to Oklahoma by their mother; they’re going to a place her mother believes they might be safe.

Eight years later, they’re settled in Tahlequah, but Steph is not happy. All she wants is to be an astronaut; to that end, she wants to go to Space Camp. She wants to attend an elite academy that she believes will be impressive on her NASA astronaut application. She’s determined to be the first Cherokee woman astronaut.

But nothing is simple. There’s not the kind of money necessary for Steph’s immediate wishes and, although her family does all they can to give her the experiences she desires, she yearns for the ones of show more her dreams.

Can Steph reach her goal?

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This coming-of-age novel, while interesting, has less to do with Steph’s dream of becoming an astronaut and more to do with the family’s traumas, with acceptance, and with identity issues. Acceptance in the world is a huge issue as is learning where you fit in when you are half Cherokee and half white.

Cherokee history, woven into the telling of the tale, is fascinating and gives the story a strong sense of place. The characters are well-developed, but none are particularly likable. Steph is so self-absorbed it is difficult to like with her and, although readers are likely to wish she finds a way to achieve her heartfelt dream, they are likely to wish she’d take a hard look at herself and become someone that readers could empathize with and care about. Kayla, far too judgmental, is not likely to fare much better in gaining readers’ empathy.

There are a few impossible-to-ignore inaccuracies in the portion of the story dealing with Steph and NASA; readers who are familiar with the astronaut process and crew assignments are likely to find themselves pulled out of the story by this imprecision. For readers expecting the story to have a strong focus on Steph’s NASA experience, this unfolding narrative is likely to be quite a disappointment.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Avid Reader Press / Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster and NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving this review.
#TotheMoonandBack #NetGalley show less

3.5/5