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A review by goodbetterbetsy
172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad
3.0
It is the not to distant future and NASA wants to send astronauts back to the moon on a super secret mission. The reason they tell the world they are going to the moon is not the actual reason. And to receive more money and support for their efforts, NASA is opening up a lottery to teenagers. Three of them will be selected to travel to the moon with the astronauts and spend 172 hours there aboard a space station that no one knew existed. However, NASA is keeping some pretty big secrets - mainly, what has kept them from the moon visiting the moon again since the 1970s.
I was hooked immediately. I loved the writing and I was interested in the characters and what was happening from page one. The teenagers/main characters are from Norway (yay!), Japan, and France. I thought Harstad did an excellent job writing the dialog/thoughts for each teen. Obviously, being from other countries English isn't their native language. I think for each individual teen, Harstad wrote their English the way they would speak it based on their native language. It was excellent. It made the characters seem more real.
I couldn't wait to finish this story to have all the big secrets of the moon revealed, but I feel like it was a bit of a let down. I don't know what I was expecting. It seems as though a lot of things were left hanging. Maybe they weren't important to the end of the story, but I was still curious. Specifically, the one teenager's brother writes her a letter because he'll miss her when she's on the moon. She doesn't read the letter, but then forgets to take it on the mission. We never find out what the letter said (I don't think I could possibly have skimmed over it). I felt it was going to be important to the story because it was talked about a lot. But then...nothing.
In the end, it was a good story and it really held my interest. I just wasn't enthusiastic about the end. I recommend this to those who like outer space and suspense.
I was hooked immediately. I loved the writing and I was interested in the characters and what was happening from page one. The teenagers/main characters are from Norway (yay!), Japan, and France. I thought Harstad did an excellent job writing the dialog/thoughts for each teen. Obviously, being from other countries English isn't their native language. I think for each individual teen, Harstad wrote their English the way they would speak it based on their native language. It was excellent. It made the characters seem more real.
I couldn't wait to finish this story to have all the big secrets of the moon revealed, but I feel like it was a bit of a let down. I don't know what I was expecting. It seems as though a lot of things were left hanging. Maybe they weren't important to the end of the story, but I was still curious. Specifically, the one teenager's brother writes her a letter because he'll miss her when she's on the moon. She doesn't read the letter, but then forgets to take it on the mission. We never find out what the letter said (I don't think I could possibly have skimmed over it). I felt it was going to be important to the story because it was talked about a lot. But then...nothing.
In the end, it was a good story and it really held my interest. I just wasn't enthusiastic about the end. I recommend this to those who like outer space and suspense.