The premise of this book is genius. The first colony on Mars would start off with a big reality television. Bang. Tristan and Izzy are a great foil for the turmoil and intrigue plaguing the voyage. I did want to scream at the characters a few times but that's nothing unusual for me. ( )

This book surprised me, in that it is more deeply the story of leaving earth than the story of colonizing Mars. It's thoughtful that way, and interesting. There's sabotage and danger and a quick-thinking band of teens from a worldwide background. There's a reality show/ media aspect and there's the emotional wave of choosing to leave. There's some great science and a plot that moves right along, and I'm hoping that there will maybe be a future book, when they are attempting further colonizing on the surface. A strong choice.

Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss. ( )

This was pretty good! I've been really digging YA sci-fi lately and this was just what I wanted. My only complaint was that it was slow at the beginning. Tristan was preparing to leave for the Mars mission and saying goodbye to his best friend and girlfriend. I can't imagine how hard that would be and I did like seeing some of it, but it was too long for me. Once they actually started the mission, things picked up significantly. I liked that getting used to space was difficult for a lot of them, as I'm sure it is in real life. Things started going wrong and people were at risk and it was fairly intense. When you find out what's happening, it wasn't really a surprise. I felt like there were a lot of clues pointing in that direction, but I still enjoyed it. The narrator was great and overall it was a fun read. ( )

Tristan has known he was going to Mars since the age of twelve. His parents gave him every opportunity to say no but he made up his mind and has been training alongside his mechanical engineer mother and biologist father to travel all the way to the red planet to colonize it alongside another thirty-seven people. His problem is knowing that he’s leaving behind everything he’s ever known and all the comforts that he has grown up with. Worst of all is leaving the two people he cares about the most: his best friend and the love of his life.

But none of that has stopped him from going through with the Mars One program. Tristan is ready to go and see what the future lies in colonizing Mars though there is a group of radicals that don’t want to see anyone make it to Mars and have threatened the mission through acts of terrorism. There’s a good chance Tristan will never get to see his friends ever again because of his new life on Mars but also if the Neo-Luddites manage to sabotage the Mars trip.

This was such an exciting book to read. Not many people know what they want to do at age twelve. At the most, I remember wanting to go to college but even then I didn’t know what for. So much can change within four years especially at such a young age where your hopes and dreams can change dramatically. I almost didn’t read this book because I thought it was going to be a mushy book about a kid that doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend behind. It was so much more than that. Tristan grew up a little more in this book. He was forced to grow up from the moment he agreed to go to Mars then on top of that he was thrown in front of a bus that dragged him into adulthood with even more responsibilities to keep his fellow travelers alive.

There were so many good things about this story. We have Tristan’s coming-of-age moments, ideological discussions that didn’t come across as too preachy, diverse characters, great friendships and a good frenemies to acquaintances relationship. For the length of the book, I feel like a lot was explored when it comes to human interactions and it flowed really nicely for me. There’s sabotage and mayhem plus a little bit of horror at what people are willing to do because of their beliefs. Tristan was a great character and I was excited at every turn to see what was going to happen. ( )

A lot of redundancy & nothing really happens until last three-quarters of the book! ( )