A cute story if quite unbelievable. I was a little disappointed that while it was made pretty clear Leo is gay the word was never actually used. That feels like a cop out to me.

The text speak style is an interesting choice and it took me quite a while to get used to reading it. I assume it's done to make leo seem young but most young people no longer use that kind of chat speak due to autocorrect. As the book is set in the future I would also expect technology for writing to have moved forward at least a little. ( )

Lake, Nick. Satellite. Knopf, 2017.
I grew up reading young adult novels by Robert Heinlein. I did not read them to find out for male bonding issues, family drama, or teenage romances, though they usually contained those elements. I read them to find out how the kids would solve problems. And if I learned something cool along the way, that was a plus. Nick Lake’s Satellite is not a book I would have much cared for as a kid. Set on a near future version of the International Space Station called Moon 2, there should have been a lot of problems for young Leo to solve, but the problem-solving issues are seldom highlighted. Angst is always on top. My young self would have said, ick. My old self thinks—egregiously sentimental. Ick. ( )

Leo has spent his whole life on Moon 2, a space station. When he turns 16, he is to go "home" to earth, but if he's never been there, is it really home? Once on earth, he finally gets to meet his grandfather, gets a puppy, struggles to walk, breaks his leg, is attacked in his home, "protected" by the men in black suits, and ends up just as alone and isolated as he was on Moon 2. When Leo is finally reunited with the other two children he grew up with on Moon 2, he needs to figure out what "home" really means to him.

I loved this book and yet, almost didn't finish it. I'd give it 4 stars for plot and premise, but 1.5 stars for the way it is presented. written in text speak it is hard 2 read, w/little punctuation and no capitals, c? I don't think many of my students write this way even in their own texts. I showed it to several of them and they said that it would drive them crazy--seems they do prefer correct grammar, even if they don't write it themselves. For me it seemed to emphasis the immaturity of Leo, and his isolation from society, which was very evident in the plot.

Favorite quotes:
here, we're more like ghosts in the attic. & everything is white or black or silver. (chap 3)

everything closed, everything waiting except me, i realize suddenly. i'm not closed i'm open. & it's going to get me hurt, so i flush my air lock suck all the hope out of myself until i'm a vacuum inside, no feelings, & then i'm ready for my mother. (chap 7) ( )

Leo, Orion and Libra were born on a space station. Now it is time for the them to go to earth for the first time in their lives. They have waited for this day, and have great expectations. But life on Earth is more dangerous, and in different ways, than any of them imagined. ( )