I think I owe this one a little review, given that I’ve only awarded it 2 stars.

I seem to have a weird relationship with Rob Dircks, I absolutely loved The Wrong Unit, kind-of enjoyed Where the Hell is Tesla? but I absolutely did not like You’re Going to Mars!. Let me tell you why, because your mileage may vary.

1. Story

This one might be down to me having the wrong mindset going in, but I was expecting more space-faring sci-fi and less dystopian game-shows. This entire story read like a cotton candy version of The Hunger Games. It spends about 80% of its runtime talking about who is going to Mars, and only 20% of actually getting there. I would have preferred it the other way around. I’m also not that big a fan of game-show stories, as they always tend to use the same tropes over and over.

What’s even worse is the liberal use of deus-ex-machina to get the MC out of trouble and the predictable plot twists that actually got annoying by the end.

2. Characters

This is where this book really falls apart for me. All of the characters, both main and side are just 1 dimensional cardboard cutouts of the tropes required for their role, worsened by the fact that, with the exception of the 2 “bad” guys (who were obviously totally and unequivocally bad), EVERYONE secretly has a heart of gold and just wants to hug it out all of the time. This type of feel-good, warm-and-fuzzy story didn’t entertain me in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and it still doesn’t. It’s not helped that all the characters seem to act like teenagers in a classroom, even the so-called adults are either all-bad or all-good, with no middle ground.

3. Writing

The writing is a bit of a coin on its side. The flow and writing is actually pretty good and works really well to make the story go down easy. Nothing to difficult though, don’t expect high prose here, when I say it makes it go down easy, I truly mean it just like that, it simplifies everything so you don’t really have to think about it. There was one instance where this was glaringly obvious, and if I would go back I would probably find more, but this one stood out as a sore thumb:

There’s a pause, I don’t know if I imagine these things, continually anthropomorphizing Martha, projecting humanity and personality on to her, but it feels like a pause to me.

I’m pretty sure there’s a name for this technique, but I’m reading a novel here, not a dictionary. Either I know the word, and adding its explanation is just patronizing, or I don’t know it, and I’ll look it up, or it becomes obvious from the context, but this really tripped me up.

There also seems to be a pacing issue near the final 20% of the book, as if the author had to stay within a certain page limit. Suddenly everything has to go really fast, there’s no embellishment, or build-up any more, we just get event after event, either completely overdone, where the words feel hollow or completely underdone, where it just feels like we’re tying up loose ends, just because we have to. In the last bits of the book there are multiple consecutive chapters that are only half a page long and it felt rushed and hollowed out. Deadline maybe?

Conclusion

If you’re the type of person that enjoys simple stories with plenty of feel-good moments and like to hug your books because of the UwU overload, you’ll love this. It’s an easy read, with simple characters, a simple story and simple plot twists. Kinda like a Disney kid show. I, however, didn’t like it.