While it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that you’re leaving everything you’ve ever known behind, Cal does not even stop to comprehend what this opportunity means for his dad. In fact, when his dad gets the job at NASA, Cal doesn’t even congratulate him on his success or willfully join in the celebration. Right off the bat, Cal shows interest only in himself and his own life. Let’s start with Cal, and what I didn’t like about him. In fact, I believe I would have given this book four or five stars if it weren’t for the protagonist.

I liked the writing style a lot, and the dialogue between the teenagers was not stilted like how most adults write teenage characters. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it – in fact, there were certain parts of the story I really liked, and certain parts I would have scrapped to give more time to the aforementioned sections that were really good. I thought I would enjoy this book a lot more than it did. As their relationship grows, so does the frenzy surrounding the Mars mission, and when secrets are revealed about ulterior motives of the program, Cal must find a way to get to the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him. They become an oasis for each other amid the craziness of this whole experience. Suddenly his life is more like a reality TV show, with his constantly bickering parents struggling with their roles as the “perfect American family.” And then Cal meets Leon, whose mother is another astronaut on the mission, and he finds himself falling head over heels–and fast. Within days, Cal and his parents leave Brooklyn for hot and humid Houston. With the entire nation desperate for any new information about the astronauts, Cal finds himself thrust in the middle of a media circus. But his plans are derailed when his pilot father is selected for a highly-publicized NASA mission to Mars. Cal wants to be a journalist, and he’s already well underway with almost half a million followers on his FlashFame app and an upcoming internship at Buzzfeed.

Phil stamper the gravity of us