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The first sentence in a well known classic goes "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Well, this unhappy family is unhappy in a generic way, and it's a way that's a big pet peeve of mine when reading books: characters omitting key pieces of information with each other. For some reason, I can't stand conflict when it could be solved by the characters simply communicating with each other, but much like real life, that's easier said than done.Despite my fru...
If you're looking for a stand alone sci-fi novel that primarily focuses on family, Light Years From Home by Mike Chen is for you. Mike Chen has quickly become one of must read authors. I really appreciate his style.
Jakob, Kass, Evie, and their father Arnold went camping fifteen years ago, and their lives changed forever. There was an unusual electrical storm, and two days later, only their father is found. Arnold and Jakob disappeared together, so where is Jakob? Arnold tells everyone that they were abducted by aliens, who kept Jakob and sent him back. The story opens with Jakob on a mission to save the universe when he runs into trouble. His only option, going back to earth and hopefully finding what he n...
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Light Years from Home. I've enjoyed the author's previous books before so I was pleased when my request was approved.I had different expectations for this after I read the premise. ** Minor spoilers ahead - no alien autopsies here ** Fifteen years ago, Jakob Shao disappeared from a camping trip with his father.When he drops back into the lives of his fractured family after so many years away, he has a fantastic story to tell and a mission to complete.But,
This book is much more a family drama than a space opera. That must have been intentional because we could have found out much more about the space parts. But I can understand that we needed the ambiguous truth of aliens to make the family dynamics play out the way they did, creating doubt for us just as doubt crept into the minds of the sisters. But as a family drama, it was superb. Siblings separated by time, distance, and pride. Everyone in their own bubble, necessarily separate and understan...
Like most of Chen’s books this was fun. He’s writing is fine and he plots the stories well. I didn’t love We Could be Heros, but this one is a solid 3.5. He says he was inspired by a story of family trauma which fits with the story but I think the most real feelings came from the sun-plot of the mother with dementia.
I’ve been itching for more stand alone sci-fi so I’m so glad I picked this book up. It was very unique and interesting, the plot was different than anything else I’ve ever read. It was sci-fi but it took place on earth in the present day, it had family drama at the center of it, and we only saw actual alien things that would be genre correct for a small part of the story. As a matter of fact, I really enjoyed about halfway through when the story went in a slightly different direction (it would b...
This is a really strange book. Part of me was thinking there'd be some ambiguity about whether or not Jakob was telling the truth about the abduction, but the book starts with immediately revealing the answer. So later scenes where his sisters question/suspect his version of events fall completely flat because we already know if he's telling the truth or not. There's no mystery. And without it, the book just ends up feeling a little bland.
"The Shao family had become a textbook case study in trauma. But with aliens."I first heard of Mike Chen on the Reading Glasses podcast, as he's a friend of their show. This book is a different sort of read because it really is more about this one family than it is a more traditional science fiction novel, and even the idea of whether it is a science fiction novel depends on which character you find most trustworthy.It's been 15 years since Jakob disappeared on a family hike at a lake, and 14 ye...
I will start by saying that I generally don’t read science fiction. However, I like family dramas, and this fits the bill. I read the author’s earlier book “Here and Now and Then” and liked it so much that I jumped when I saw an advanced reader’s copy from NetGalley.What would you do if your family was broken, your mother had dementia, and your brother, who has been missing for years, shows up and tells you that he’s been living in space. Sounds a little farfetched, right? But somehow, the autho...
3.5 stars
What happens to your family when you're abducted by aliens? For Jakob, it turns out that his younger sister and father dedicate their lives to proving the existance of extraterrestrials, while his twin sister becomes a hardened cynic, and his mother descends into dementia. When Jakob returns to Earth after 15 years of being an inter-galactic soldier and engineer, he must navigate all the family dynamics that he missed, and convince his family that he's not the ne'er-do-well they always thought h...
I really like Mike Chen's books and was really excited to be able to read this via NetGalley. (thank you, Net Galley!)So here's the thing--I did not like this nearly as much as any of his other books. But in reading the author's afterward I'd have to say my lukewarm response is not due to his writing or anything, just that I didn't love what this was all about. In the afterward he explains that he very deliberately was writing a story about a family and he definitely achieved that. It's just tha...
Read this review and other Science Fiction/Fantasy book reviews at The Quill to LiveThe covers of Mike Chen’s books have haunted my Goodreads feed and the genre’s “most anticipated” lists for years. The synopses beckon like a faint siren’s call, but I never found the time to pick one up and dive in. Well, this year I decided to break out of the vicious cycle, and by god look at that cover. Light Years From Home is a heartfelt tale about a family broken by both time and distance that vividly capt...
Light Years from Home by Mike Chen is a standalone science fiction fantasy mixed with family drama. The story in Light Years from Home is one that is told from multiple points of view and some flashes back to what happened to the characters in the past.Fifteen years ago siblings Kass, Evie and Jakob had been camping with their father when the girls had separated from Jakob and their dad. Something happened that night and Kass and Evie couldn’t find their brother or father triggering a huge searc...
This novel alternates perspectives between three adult siblings, Kass, Evie, and Jakob. 15 years before the book began, Jakob and their dad disappeared - their dad reappeared a few days later saying they’d been kidnapped by aliens, but Jakob never reappeared. But now 15 years later, Jakob has come back from outer space - or is that where he really was? Evie wants to believe so because she has basically dedicated her life to a group dedicated to proving alien life but sensible Kass would never be...
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)Light Years from Home is a SF family story. A book that will wring tears from your eyes, laughter from your heart, and carve itself into your soul. It's full of action, family dynamics, and a story about siblings. About the things we think we know about the ones we love. About the lies we tell the ones we love and the lies we tell ourselves. These relationships with some of our clo...
Light Years from Home is Mike Chen’s latest novel, and, in my opinion, it fits right in with the rest of the author’s portfolio. It is a sci-fi story written in Chen’s signature smooth style, with a narrative that includes family drama and alien technology, and a message full of hope. I definitely enjoyed this read.There is always an easy connection with the characters in Chen’s books, and Light Years from Home is no different. There are many elements that go into this. All of the characters hop...
Mike Chen's books are always SO good. He must spend a lot of time figuring out character arcs and laying them into the plot. His characters seem so real, and they drive the story. The plots wouldn't be plots without them, and I really like that. I've loved all his books, but the characters here are some of my favorites. The Shao family has got a lot of issues to deal with. There's Jakob, the man who disappeared fifteen years ago as a teen and holds the key to saving the universe from hostile ali...
Originally published at Reading RealityEvery unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but there are few families that are unhappy because one of the adult children has been abducted by aliens and recruited to fight in an intergalactic war.Not that the Shao family was exactly happy BEFORE Jakob Shao joined the intergalactic fleet – but back then they were unhappy in ways that would be a bit more familiar. Now, not so much.Light Years from Home isn’t quite the story we’re expecting from the b...