I was not expecting to like this book. It's a 2024 Lone Star selection.

Myra must be great as a Number Whisperer. Her parents hold high positions in the government as Number Whisperers and the assumption remains that Myra will be equally talented. Unfortunately, the numbers do not speak to her. She lives a lonely existence at the prestigious school for people with magic with no friends and mostly mean roommates. She knows how often and how one can skip classes without being discovered. One rule is to never return to the same place. It's in a new location where Myra unwittingly finds a garden. Years ago, the Earth became inhabitable when the plants all became poisonous. People have moved to the Moon and other planets to get away from the dangers of the Earth. One company mass produces something called "food," but it's nothing like what existed on Earth. Myra fears she will die after finding the garden. Her roommate, a Mender, checks her over and doesn't find anything wrong with her. Myra soon discovers that her magic isn't with numbers but with botany. She can make the plants thrive and grow. She learns from a Rep (a lower class group of people who do menial tasks, assumed to be stupid and treated rudely by most people; they go about "unseen"), Bernie, who worked in this garden with a previous magic person. It's all very hush-hush. Myra can't tell anyone.

Every school must have the resident athlete whom people follow; he's good looking and maybe even smart. In this book, our athlete is Canter. He's the son of the director of the school with whom he does not get along. He discovers Myra and her garden. He finds his own place in the garden and agrees to keep Myra's secret. They become odd friends who hope to bring food back to all of the colonies. The last person to join the group is Lila, Myra's Mender roommate. They all believe that they can solve the food issue and help people.

My one criticism is that they act way older than they are said to be. When each character mentioned their ages, I was stunned because they present themselves as high schoolers. I found the novel to be a page-turner even though I rarely like books set off Earth. I'm not a sci-fi person, nor do I like books set on colonies in the universe. Occasionally, a book will be well-written and entertaining, making it a really good sci-fi novel. This novel is light sci-fi. Nonetheless, it's very enjoyable. ( )

I really enjoyed this. It is young adult, but not of the annoying kind. It's sometimes a bit predictable, not too complicated, but a nice story, nice characters, a little bit of intrigue.
The thing I enjoyed the most was the magic. That sounded quite lovely. ( )

A fun spin on "The Secret Garden." I look forward to the next book in the series. ( )

A nice space fantasy. 12 year old Myra is your typical angsty tween who gets caught up in the secrets of her Elite lunar boarding school. At this point in time the Earth is no longer habitable because plants became toxic and poisoned Earth's atmosphere.

The plot is fun and has a lot of drama, the characters are your typical tropey school types, the nerd girl, jock boy, the surveillance teacher, the Dean With Secrets. Can't say I didn't see it coming, but also it's an entertaining formula.

My only qualms are: 1) there is virtually no plot resolution. This will be a series and very obviously so. There are answered questions, and an attempt at plot resolution that instead became a conflict point for more drama. It feels unfinished and unsatisfying. 2) If plants are so evil because what they did to Earth and they haven't been cultivated in at least a couple generations, then how do all these people find and get caught with all these seeds? Seeds show up everywhere. At least one person per family has seeds! Distracting. ( )

I absolutely adored this book. Can’t wait to read the next one in the series. I loved the characters. I loved the friendship feels and positive themes, all wrapped up in descriptive imagery and a strange blend of sci-fi and fantasy. It’s got an inventive magic system where knowledge, science, magic, and sometimes even emotion are all entangled.

There’s some secret garden vibes (in a good way), but this story is totally its own thing. Restoring and protecting a secret garden draws together unlikely friends. As the garden comes alive, so do the characters. That’s the extent of the similarity. This book is original, unique, and really quite odd. It’s heartwarming at times, terribly sad at times, and surprisingly emotionally complex.

While I do think the backstory of the plants on earth suddenly evolving to emit poisonous gas and render Earth uninhabitable is a bit ridiculous, I found the story is well worth suspending your disbelief of that premise.

Weaved into the story are themes of self-acceptance, challenging society’s fears and prejudices, loyalty, love, grief, and found families. It’s never preachy or heavy-handed. It also doesn’t shy away from moral complexity and ethical issues. It's a YA book, but it's refreshingly mature and free of romance-related-angst.

THE PREMISE:

Set in the year 2448. Humans have discovered that science and magic are inherently connected, instead of being the separate things they were once thought to be. Myra is attending the Scientific Lunar Academy of Magic, a school for those with science-fueled magic built on the moon. The trouble is, she doesn’t appear to have any magical aptitude. Not the math-driven Number Whisperer magic that her parents practice, the chemistry-based magic of Chemics, the medical magic of Menders, or the electricity-driven magic of Electors. She’s never gotten any magical marks that appear on one’s skin as they develop their skills with one of these branches of magic. Soon, she fears she’ll be kicked out of school and sent to one for kids without magic. Then, her parents will definately find out she has way less magic than they think.

Until, she finds a garden hidden in the school. An illegal garden. As she tends to the garden that’s fallen into great disrepair, she begins to suspect that she might have magic afterall. Plant magic. Magic thought to have died out long ago. Forbidden magic.

Long ago, the plants on earth mutated and began to give off poisonous fumes. Earth was rendered uninhabitable. A third of Earth’s population died. The rest fled to off-world colonies. Now terrified of plants and plant magic, humans outlawed plants and began to live off of cloned plants grown only in carefully controlled laboratories.

But, Myra’s stumbed accross a garden full of non-cloned plants. Plants that certainly aren’t poisonous. Myra, a boy named Canter who also stumbles across the garden, and their friends secretly work to restore the garden and uncover its secrets. With rumors of catastrophic problems with the cloned food supply, Myra and her friends prepare to reveal the garden to prove that not all plants are dangerous and non-cloned plants can be safely used for food again. It might just be humanity’s best chance for survival. As they dig deeper into the secrets of the garden, they uncover suspicious deaths and dangers wrapped up in the garden’s history. When their friend, who knew the secrets of the garden, goes missing, they begin to fear people connected to the garden are being silenced. It turns out that a garden is a dangerous and controvertial secret to harbor.

CHARACTERS AND WRITING:

Myra’s a great strong female protagonist without being the stereotypical brave, bold, fearless, arrogant, impulsive, wanted-by-all-the-boys, boy-obsessed, great-at-everything YA fiction female main character. In fact, there’s also no romance, although there might be friendships that could develop into romance eventually.

Myra’s clever, kind, sometimes brave, and relatable. She disobedient, sarcastic, curious, a little bit sneaky, conflict-averse, introverted, self-conscious, secretive, and not very good at making friends at first. She’s a rule breaker, but not an angry rebel type. She can be a little bit morally gray at times. (There are times where lies, rule-breaking, or maybe even a little bit of implicit blackmail are in order if it’s for a good cause.) She builds up confidence over the course of the book and finds the courage to be honest with her parents. Friends worm their way into her life despite her closed off nature. They’re all brought together by the garden. Myra gets better at facing conflict, opening up to friends, and reflecting on her own mistakes.

The main characters are all lovable and imperfect, with hearts of gold. This is a young adult book with teenage main characters, but they mature a lot over the course of the book. It’s also not angsty, immature YA. The main characters all make understandable mistakes. They end up owning their mistakes, trying to do better, working to fix what they can.

Great character development. Well-written friendships, both new and old, that grow with the characters. These friends help each other grow, face their own flaws, learn from their mistakes, and venture out of their comfort zones. They learn to trust each other, teach each other, and work as a team.

Myra and her friends each display strokes of brilliance by the end of the book. They make plenty of rookie mistakes, but they’re all clever in their own way, have unique skills, and are learning fast. Getting sneakier, smarter, and even a bit more cynical and paranoid too. You can see how they’re starting to form a formidable team.

The teenage characters also learn to see adults, including their parents, as imperfect, complicated people who make mistakes. They also start to think about things bigger than themselves, instead of falling into immature narcissism. These protagonists want to be free to be themselves. They want answers. They also want to help humanity. To contribute. To make things better. To make a difference.

For a while, it seemed like the book might side-step the tougher ethical issues of its sci-fi world, but instead it grappled with them head on. Where things could have been written in black and white, the author instead allowed things to be gray. Kids discover secrets the adults have been keeping. Mistakes they’ve made. Instead of condemning them as heartless or completely irredeemable, they acknowledge them as flawed people that believed they were (or are) doing the right thing.

THE ENDING:

To be continued ending. No cliffhanger. The ending is bittersweet, but hopeful. Some things are resolved, new problems have arisen, and there’s a lot more to come for this series. The characters have grown a lot. They’ve got more gardening and more magic to do. And maybe, an old friend of Myra’s to help too.

Warnings: death (off-page), slavery (enslavement of clones, condemned by the main characters, nothing graphic)