Satellite by Nick Lake Full Review

Was this book revolutionary? Yes. Was it confusing, and did it make me claustrophobic? Yes. Was it good, though? Yes. Satellite by Nick Lake is a dystopian novel about a boy born and conceived in space. It was like nothing I've ever read before. Putting personal preferences aside, it was an amazing book. I'd rate it 7.5/10.

First of all, Leo, the main character, seems slightly underdeveloped. While the excuse can be made that he lived in space for 16 years with little entertainment or room to create hobbies, he seemed to be a slightly 2-dimensional character who only wanted to go to Earth, and then when he was on Earth, he wanted to go back up to space. While I could and do forgive his ignorance, it still irks me that Lake, as an author, didn't give us much to connect to Leo. I know Leo is just a character, but I feel like he deserves better. He isn't mean, or selfish, and he actually gets very hurt, but he seems like a fragile baby bird - and maybe that's what Lake wants us to picture him as.

The other two who grew up on Moon 2 (the space station), Libra and Orion, are also Leo's age. They're twins, and the ending that they got seemed unfair. I can't elaborate on this much without spoiling anything, but the plot of the book seems rather simple. How could it go wrong? But, there's a lot more at work and not everyone is as they seem. The only character who I really liked was Grandpa, Leo's grandfather. Leo's mother was unfeeling, even cold at times. Leo chalked it up to her professionalism and tried to accept her as his mother, but if she had loved him or at least expressed her love for him, he would've been a lot more happy.

In my intro, I mentioned personal preferences. I have a few that caused me to not like this book as much. First of all, the book is written without capitalization and with shortened slang, like 'b4' for before, 'u' for you, and 'u're' for you're. I'm not going to pretend I don't use that when I text, but it's still distracting when I'm reading a book. It gave Leo's narration a childish quality, which rubbed me the wrong way because he's one of the smartest characters I've ever come across. Additionally, the way space is described is beautiful, of course. However, to live up there you're entire life made me feel claustrophobic just thinking about it. Additionally, what happens when Leo does arrive on Earth makes me more claustrophobic because I have to imagine the health problems and how difficult it is just for him to breathe or fall asleep. Overall, the effect was very unsettling, as it probably was intended to be.

To wrap this review up, I would rate this a 7.5/10. Twists and turns, slightly underwhelming characters, and a fresh never-done-before premise leads me to suggest that you read this book!

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