Book Review Tuesday (11/7/23) – The Deep Sky

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

The Deepy Sky came out this July, and I’ve been seeing a ton of buzz about it around the blogosphere since. I’m always in for a sci-fi thriller, and this one delivered in that aspect, as well as the wonderful mixed-race rep!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Deep Sky – Yume Kitasei

Asuka has been chosen as a representative on a mission to deep space, where she will help give birth the next generation of Earth’s children. But she has been chosen to represent Japan—a country she barely knows, as a half-Japanese, half-Latina girl raised in the United States. Feeling like an imposter to an unfamiliar country, she accepts her duty and joins the crew of the Phoenix. But a deadly explosion onboard the ship leaves her the only surviving witness. With all eyes on her once more, Asuka must get to the bottom of the explosion before the perpetrator strikes again.

TW/CW: racism, terrorism, miscarriage/fertility themes, death of a child

“Literary” sci-fi rarely does it for me; most of what I’ve read barely scrapes past the 3.5 star rating for me, at best. Often, what happens is that the sci-fi element gets significantly watered down for the sake of marketability, drama, and a place in a celebrity’s book club (see: Sea of Tranquility, In the Quick). But The Deep Sky had the chops to make itself unique—and incredibly poignant.

The sci-fi plot of The Deep Sky is pretty standard as far as story elements go, but Kitasei’s approach to it made it feel fresh. It’s the setup for a myriad of sci-fi thrillers: you’ve got a large crew voyaging through the depths of space, only for a tragic accident to leave everyone onboard in suspicion, with no way to get back to Earth. It’s not necessarily a new approach plot-wise that keeps it going—it’s the emotional core that Kitasei brings to it. You’re really able to see deeply into Asuka’s head, deeper than a lot of authors dare to go with these kinds of stories; it’s a great way to increase the stakes without having to complicate the mystery of the story.

Also, LET’S HEAR IT FOR MIXED-RACE REPRESENTATION!! I’ve been on a roll with books with amazing mixed-race characters and stories lately (see also: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony—a very different book, but no less poignant), and as a mixed-race person, I’m so glad that narratives like these exist. Kitasei’s depiction of the imposter syndrome that Asuka faces about her identity is twofold—not only is there the level of it that comes with her being of Japanese and Mexican descent in the U.S., but also in the fact that she has to represent Japan—a country that she’s barely been to—in this mission. It really did make me feel so, so seen. Kitasei’s portrayal of having these intersecting identities and them coming at odds with how others want to box you in was deeply moving and authentic, and I cannot thank her enough for that.

Back to the subject of literary sci-fi. A lot of these types of novels that I’ve read deal with intersecting, nonlinear timelines, which may or may not have to do with actual time travel (case dependent). For the most part, it worked incredibly in Kitasei’s favor—even outside what we can consider the “main” plot, the pieces that we get of Asuka’s life before the deep space mission were almost more intriguing than the actual murder mystery in space. Kitasei’s character work is incredibly detailed and nuanced, and having most of this novel be driven by character and family was a choice that made me enjoy it that much more. These types of sci-fi thrillers normally lend themselves to very distant characters, and minimal character work by proxy (outside of “trust no one”), so this was a breath of fresh air in that sense.

That being said, the nonlinear timeline was also what brought part of the novel down for me. There’s much more emphasis placed on the time before the mission than the actual mission, making the murder mystery plot feel like an afterthought. The way that these timelines were spaced out meant that we went long stretches without checking in on what’s supposed to be the novel’s inciting incident, which made the stakes feel much lower than they were meant to be. The tension got appropriately amped towards the end, but other than that, there really wasn’t as much thriller as I was expecting going in. Maybe this is just a matter of how The Deep Sky was marketed, but I did wish we got a little more of the “main” plot.

All in all, a rare gem of a literary sci-fi novel where every page brimmed with emotion and suspicion. 4 stars!

The Deep Sky is a standalone; it is also Yume Kitasei’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!