Review Detail

What worked: BLACK MIRROR in space where not all is what it seems. There are so many twists, turns, and quirky reveals in this Sci-fi dystopian novel where two boys fall in love while on the run of their lives in outer space.

Noa wakes up and finds himself floating in outer space and doesn't know how he got there. He only hears a voice that tries to help save him, before he dies. Then he finds himself on a spaceship with no recollection of what happened. This is where the Black Mirror with a hint of The Matrix comes in.

The strength of the novel is Hutchinson's quirkiness, punchy dialogue, and characters that come alive on the pages. One other plus is the sweet romance between Noa and D.J.

I admit though, I was lost a few times and didn't get what was going on. This is especially true during the chapters where Noa's life is an endless Groundhog's day that doesn't seem to end.

Noa comes across at first as very unlikeable, but a reveal of a very traumatic event shows how hard it would be for him to trust or even to love again. D.J. seems too amicable and nonconfrontational even when Noa goes off on him.

The whole premise of this story is surreal. There's a girl who dies and comes back to life only to shout out a puzzling reveal. An alien that shoots acid. A high school where teachers are robots and threaten students to behave or be punished. And a hologram that is both confusing and annoying.

Only toward the end of the novel do readers start to put the puzzle altogether.

One wild ride in a galaxy where not all is what it seems to be. Life indeed is one changing production number!