This is Sarah Enright, with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today I am recommending In the Quick by Kate Hope Day, an unconventional novel with timeless quality and a remarkable heroine that’s been described as Jane Eyre meets The Martian.
June is a brilliant and gifted twelve-year-old girl living in the unspecified future. Her dreams and ambitions all point towards following in the footsteps of her late uncle, a scientific astronomer credited with inventing the crucial tools that have advanced space travel. June begins attending the training school at the National Space Program, named in her uncle’s honor, even though she's at least two years younger than her classmates. At the same time, a recently launched spacecraft named Inquiry, powered by her uncle’s revolutionary fuel cells, loses communication, and is presumed lost.
Six years later when June claims her first spot in space following her arduous training, the failing of Inquiry continues to haunt her. She’s convinced that the crew is still alive and becomes obsessed with reaching them again. Her uncle’s former protégé, James, has also been trying to understand the fatal error of the fuel cells. Drawn to James with the hope that they can mutually solve this mystery, a magnetic attraction quickly develops. Soon, June learns that James is hiding something dangerous, propelling her into a tense situation that has the potential to completely spiral out of control.
The imaginative storyline sprinkled with elements of science fiction, space travel, and romance kept me hooked and sealed this book as one of my favorite reads this year.
Find In the Quick and more stellar books like it at the Sioux City Public Library.
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