To the Moon and Back (Reese's Book Club)
A Novel
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3.6 • 53 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK
“A breathtaking debut about family, identity, and love across generations.” —Reese Witherspoon
“Eliana Ramage will break your heart and take you to the stars. From painfully accurate depictions of adolescence to effortless jumps through time and space—I loved it all.” —Kiley Reid
In this dazzlingly powerful story of family, ambition and belonging, one young woman’s obsessive quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut irrevocably alters the fates of the people she loves most.
Steph Harper is convinced that only space—outer space—can save her. From a childhood of fearful running and alienation; from a family and community that threaten to suffocate her with their reverence for the past. Equal parts tender, funny, and heartbreaking, To the Moon and Back charts the course of Steph’s singular dream: to become the first Cherokee astronaut, no matter who or what she has to leave behind.
But despite her self-prescribed loneliness and reckless ambition, Steph’s story isn’t hers alone. To the Moon and Back also brings to life the vibrant, complex women—a celebrity activist younger sister, an ex-Mormon college girlfriend, and a devoted mother with a crushing secret—who insist on loving her…even when she least deserves them.
From a simulated Mars habitat on a Hawaiian volcano, to a house in the Ozark foothills in Cherokee Nation, to a pressurized research station on the floor of the Atlantic and beyond, Steph will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, driving them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. An awe-inspiringly epic novel of mothers and daughters, sisters and sacrifice, love and loss, terror and wonder, To the Moon and Back is the unforgettable story of one astronaut’s most surprising discovery: how deeply she loves life on earth.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This heartfelt debut novel will make you laugh, sigh, and cry your eyes out. Steph and her sister, Kayla, were just kids when their mother went on the run to raise them on the Cherokee Nation reservation. In the years that follow, they each struggle with the aftermath of those difficult times, along with the pain of generational trauma. Kayla pours her emotions into a string of causes as an activist, while Steph channels her feelings into something bigger: a single-minded mission to become an astronaut. What captured us about Steph was that, despite her admirable goal, she’s far from an idealized heroine. She’s deeply flawed and beautifully, painfully realistic. As she struggles to come of age, honor her cultural heritage, understand her sexuality, and succeed in an impossibly competitive field, she makes mistakes and learns from them. Eliana Ramage’s story of sisterhood, identity, and self-actualization is a true gem.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The touching debut from Ramage focuses on a young Cherokee woman's struggle to become the first Native American astronaut. In 1990s Oklahoma, 13-year-old Steph Harper longs to attend Space Camp and applies to a private school, hoping it will put her on the path. Rummaging through her mother's purse, she finds a scholarship offer from the school and is bereft to realize she's missed the deadline to accept, and that her mother kept the news from her ("I saw my mother holding me back, so afraid... that she'd force on me a small life"). Steph never loses her ambition to travel to space and eventually attends a private college in rural Connecticut, where she has a tumultuous romantic relationship with fellow Indigenous student Della. After drifting through a series of online hookups in graduate school, Steph is chosen for astronaut training in Hawaii, but tensions arise when her younger sister arrives to protest NASA's installation of a large telescope on sacred Indigenous lands. While Ramage sets a leisurely pace at the beginning, readers will be rewarded once Steph starts to achieve small victories in her quest. It's a satisfying exploration of a woman's determination to realize her potential.
Customer Reviews
Good read
I enjoyed this book.
To the moon and back
If you’re a lesbian you will love this book. If you’re looking for a plot besides that you’ll be looking for a long time. I’m not a homophobe by any means. But, it got so tedious I quit after 150 pages.