I absolutely LOVED this. This is what I would’ve wanted Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere to be like. The book is a combination of Oliver’s Austronaut’s log while on a mission to Europa, and his reflecting on his life while on that 10 year long mission. The characters are beautifully written and it’s at times easy to love Oliver and at times easy to hate him and his quiet ambition. This is not an action packed book but I was hooked from the very beginning. I wish I could erase my memory and read this again for the first time.

Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book. I was particularly excited to read this second novel by Cecile Pin when it included a letter from the author herself stating that she had reread a lot of Kazuo Ishiguro’s works in order to write this novel. And indeed, the influence of Ishiguro shines under the ink of this novel: it is assured, in depth, real and yet wondrous. It balances the very real, tremendous realities of being human in small adept images: butterflies, cicadas, spacesuits. The moral quandaries and binary opposites of Oliver and Philly and space and earth illuminate the novel throughout. I found myself with enormous empathy for both sides but ultimately loved and understood Pin’s main character Oliver in a way that I desperately hope other readers will too. On a personal note, I am a writer myself and have been toying with a story about a lonesome girl and space for a while now. It was wonderful to read CELESTIAL LIGHTS and see these story components put into play. I read this novel in the space of an afternoon and like with Pin’s first book felt myself entirely absorbed into the world created and connections made. Even now reflecting on the book I find the lost character of Masuda—an astronaut watched by Oliver in his youth—one of the most compelling and comprising of the whole novel. It is, after all, Masuda’s journey into space that allows Oliver to—despite everything— commit to his own. It is Masuda who reminds us dreamers that no dream is ever singular even if it is unique. “The red planet is not so lonely today.” (p.61) Overall, I loved this literary “science” focussed fiction that has tones of Ishiguro but also plenty of Pin’s own excellence. It is a book for dreamers and do-ers and ultimately a huge reflection on how we treat our home and those we share it with.