by Yume Kitasei
In my Instagram (@eveslistofficial) short video, I summarized this book as a hybrid between Harry Potter’s training in Hogwarts and competition and comradery of Hunger Games, two of my favorite series, all set in space. Here’s a deep dive into the Deep Sky:
I never thought I was a fan of space until I read this book. The combination of paranoia, deception, and the ever-lasting search for acceptance made a great theme for this science-fiction. The story follows our main character, Asuka, a girl who has been recruited onto a mission to start a new life on a new planet called Planet X. The first chapter takes off with Asuka being asked to do a spacewalk to investigate a strange object on the side of the spaceship. As she comes closer, there’s an explosion. Just a few months after waking up from ten years of sleep, three people are dead, and Asuka is going to find out who is the traitor. Throughout the book, our perspectives on Asuka change as we see flashbacks up to ten years before takeoff. These little pieces of Asuka’s life let us observe her as a changing girl and learn some things that actually help Asuka in the end.
One of the things I loved about this book was how engaging the plot was. The turn of events kept my eyes glued to the page. Whenever they accused someone new, I was left on the edge of suspense as I kept reading, trying to figure out if they’re really the culprits. When Luis, Asuka’s brother, died, the author was subtly hinting that he had drowned while playing with his virtual reality. That set Asuka’s goal clear; she was going to space for Luis.
I think that this book is for young adults, like me, mainly because Asuka starts training for the program at twelve, and we get to see her grow up throughout the book. I was a little bit disappointed in the fact that we didn’t really see much character growth in Asuka until the very last few chapters of the book. She had the same attitude leaving her mother for the training as she did ten years later leaving for outer space. That was why when I first started reading the book, I kept on thinking that Asuka was 12 in space when she was actually 22, but technically 32 because of the decade long hibernation they did.
I also liked this book because it gave insights into the many struggles of interracial kids. Asuka wanted to find a balance between both nationalities (American and Japanese) but her mom’s enduring attitude to wanting her to be more Japanese made the relationship between them even more distant. We learned that Asuka appreciates Japanese culture, but being able to speak very little Japanese and having only lived in Japan for a year, she felt out of place when meeting the other Japanese candidates.
There was a reason I’ve always been not too fond of space: the risks you had to take. The space wheel in this book was knocked off course and everyone was set for a life wandering in vacuum until death. But, Asuka took a risk and told everyone to blow an explosive on the other side, to straighten the ship back up again. I realized you had to take risks, and if you’re trained well enough to do them, you will most likely succeed. It’s better to try and stay alive than to accept your fate. I recommend this book because I had such a fun time reading it, and I hope you will too.