Naomi's dream of going into space becomes reality when her adopted mother, the rich and passionate Valerie Black, organises an all-female mission to a planet that could be humanity's salvation.
Naomi jumps at Valerie's offer to be the ship's botanist, knowing that it is the only chance she will have to go space thanks to the restrictions being placed on women.
But things soon unravel as the crew face unforeseen problems and Naomi begins to think that one of her crew-mates may be hiding a dark secret.
Will the crew make it to their destination?

I love a good sci-fi and when I heard that Goldilocks had an all-female crew in it I knew I had to read it.
The themes and events in Goldilocks are very relevant at the moment - climate change had changed the Earth irreversibly, women's rights/lives were being restricted and controlled, and there were virus pandemics as well, which hit a bit too close to home given the current global situation.
Naomi was a mixed character for me. Did I feel sorry for her? Yes, I did, but she didn't have much of a personality. Bland seems like a strong and harsh word to use, but that's the word that comes to mind when I think of Naomi, unfortunately.
Of the characters, Valerie felt the most developed, and I did find Valerie and Naomi's dynamic and relationship interesting.
Half of the novel is set in the past and half in the present. I found the chapters set in the present more interesting and engaging because they were set in space, but the backstory was important to establish the relationship between Naomi and Valerie as well as Naomi's past.
The plot was enjoyable overall, but I did guess several twists and wasn't as gripped as I expected to be, which could be because there wasn't as much action or suspense as I thought there would be.
The science was interesting and made me want to learn more about the Alcubierre drive.
The writing style was easy to follow and understand.
I feel like Goldilocks didn't quite reach its potential for me, but I did enjoy it overall, and found it to be a well-rounded sci-fi with a feminist twist.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read.

Described as mixture of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Martian, Goldilocks balances the issues of women’s rights, the threat of climate change and space travel all in one novel. Although it tackles these heavy issues it was a fast paced thriller that had me gripped from page one. Lam manages to explore weighty themes without making me feel overwhelmed, or losing any of her plot to these bigger messages. The plights of the women on the crew were, unfortunately highly relatable and easy to imagine in a world stuck in a chaos of humanities own making. This was helped by the fact that, even though her cast of characters is small as we mainly focus on the five on the ship, each one has a well-built, flawed personality that was very believable. The narrative follows Naomi and her journey to Cavendish, yet I still got a sense of each of the characters motivations and personality through her limited perspective. I would however have enjoyed a little more of a look into the minds other crew members, but that is only because I found them so dynamic and intriguing.

With the issues that the novel present us, sexism and climate change, I do wish there was some more backstory into how the world dissolved into this. With climate change it is more self-explanatory, and if you already know the science you can fill in the gaps. However, with the issue of women’s rights I think that a little more information about how this happened would have not only driven home point more, but fleshed out this reality Lam is painting for us. I loved the feminist message in this novel and how the crew are all strong women with different talents but very real flaws, I just think that we needed to know more about the state of the world as a whole. We are supposed to believe everything at face-value and just accept that this is how the word evolved. Yet this is a very minor criticism, and the only one I really have.

My favourite part of the novel, aside from the characters, was the science. You can see how much research has gone into this novel as how Lam has tried to use as close to real science as possible, and it really pays off. The level of detail is just enough to know that everything being explained in the novel is most likely possible, even if in theory, but not enough to confuse me and throw me from the plot. It makes the fact they are supposed to be in space believable, and much easier to picture than I anticipated.

As for the plot, I don’t want to say too much because so much could end up being a spoiler. However, I think the flashbacks to Naomi’s journey to the ship was well plotted and added something to the world building this book needed. And I loved piecing together everything that was happening on the ship to figure out what was really going on. There is a hint of mystery throughout the whole book which definitely makes itself known, and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Overall, I flew through this book, and was completely immersed in Lam’s writing style, the mystery, characters, and the depiction of this almost apocalyptic future. One I would definitely recommend for fellow lovers of Sci-Fi. Haunting, thrilling, hopeful, and utterly human.

Finally, thanks to Headline and Laura Lam for providing me with this proof to review.

According to one review, this is a book for people who get angry on Facebook and read a Margaret Atwood book once. Both are true of me, so unsurprisingly I enjoyed Laura Lam's latest - a thriller set in an imaginable tomorrow, where climate change has escalated and the newly-discovered planet of Cavendish looks like humanity's best hope for survival. But all are not created equal: the opportunity to go to Cavendish is likely to be determined by wealth and gender - until the increasingly regressive US government try to cut a key female investor and entrepreneur out of the loop.

Valerie Black has never taken no for an answer in her life. Her response is to put together an all-female crew she trusts with not just her life but the whole planet's future, and steal the spaceship her company helped to design. She is determined to make Cavendish a utopian haven for a bright new future, not a government-controlled exodus of the status quo. But as it becomes clear that there are secrets aboard, the tiny crew finds itself looking at one another askance and questioning Valerie's leadership. Is the dream of Cavendish enough to hold them together?

Narrated by Valerie's adopted daughter Naomi, the mission's botanist, Goldilocks is told in split timelines as we follow the escalating events aboard the Atalanta and explore Naomi and Valerie's relationship through the years. It makes for a well-executed thriller with strong feminist leanings (that is unafraid to admit that being a feminist doesn't stop you being an asshat), but I found the character development thinner than in previous books by Lam and I remain on the fence about the fractured timelines. I think I would have been more invested in - and had a better grasp of - the characters if I'd experienced their lives chronologically; but this is a very subjective thing and would have needed a much bigger book to do it justice!

While I found the ending protracted and oddly anti-climactic, ultimately Goldilocks is about relationships with parents, figuring out who we are and learning to step out of their shadow - on a personal basis and as a species. And on that basis I found it very satisfying (yes, in spite of being anti-climactic; sometimes a low-key trailing end works out the throughline).

What a journey!

With climate catastrophes, pandemics, a populist right wing government and imposed restrictions on women's rights, Goldilocks by Laura Lam is not a comfortable read, especially right now, but it is thrilling, gripping, timely and powerful!

This is hard sci-fi done very well. The scientific details are thorough and complex enough to sound plausible to this layman, but they never get in the way of the emotional storytelling. This is a book about a desperate journey to another world. But it's also a story about human nature, hubris, ambition and pride. It's a story about what we're willing to do to save ourselves and humanity.

It doesn't pull any punches either. It's a fascinating depiction of the privilege wealth brings with it, and how that can affect the people with that privilege, what it's like to grow up with someone else opening (or closing) doors for you, and how that can impact on your life, in ways I haven't really thought about before. Naomi's character is the emotional heart of the story, and with her strengths and vulnerabilities she's an excellent main character.

So much of the background detail to this book feels really quite scarily timely, but there is hope in the darkness, and this is the story I needed right here, right now, to keep that in sight.

Complex, powerful, ambitious.

I’ve been reading science fiction for as long as I can remember and I really love space. Like I REALLY love space. I have no interest in the science but I would sooner go to space than into the ocean. Imagine my disgust when I learned historically, women were good enough to test for space but not good enough to go there. It’s clear Laura Lam discovered the same and she gave us Goldilocks.
This is definitely a stand out in a line of the resurgence in the space exploration genre of scifi stories but this is the first one that I have been deeply moved by. There is no denying the strength of these women and what they are trying to achieve here. It’s one thing to take back jobs and protest for equality, but these bad ass people literally stole a space mission.
I truly enjoyed the characters but their relationships and how they work together were truly the standout here. I think my favourite was Valerie and Naomi with their surrogate mother/daughter dynamic. I love a good found family story and this one I thought was probably the most accurate and interesting I had ever seen. There is even an early on instance where both of them had a fight and they are trying to recoup after a year of the fall out from it.
Can I just comment as well on the excellent writing and how well Laura Lam tells this wonderful story of discovery, pain and the very possible changes that could happen with a government started to restrict women further and further. I also loved the cheeky nod to the best known dystopic story about women losing their rights.
Thank you to Anne for having me on the tour and NetGalley for a copy for this amazing book in exchange for a review. Goldilocks is available now

I did not know much about Goldilocks before I started reading, sucked in by the beautiful cover and wanting to branch out into outer space for a change from COVID-times. Little did I know that Goldilocks would turn out to be an incredibly timely novel dealing with themes of isolation, loneliness and close confinement (yes, I, a supposedly smart person, did not make the connection between social isolation and long-distance space travel). Laura Lam looks at the social dynamics of being cooped up over long periods, and the ensuing change in relationships and developing tensions in a nuanced and poignant way, and it was a treat to look at our current lives from such an estranged perspective.

A group of women hijacking a spaceship set to go to a new planet light years away from Earth, in a society biased against women’s rights, makes for an interesting story in the best of times. Add in intrigue, a dying earth, ethical conundrums and a deathly plague, and you have a story you cannot put down.

Goldilocks was incredibly well written and consistently fast-paced. Although I usually prefer books that are a bit slower, it worked well in this instance, and kept tension high throughout. The details were well-crafted and the characters personable and strongly motivated. It shows that Laura Lam knows what she is doing, and without spoiling anything, I loved the intricacies of the story and the moral dilemmas facing the characters. The one thing that didn’t quite work for me was the framing device – it felt anti-climactic, and unnecessary. I would have preferred it if Naomi’s story could have stood by itself, although to a certain extent the framing shows the greater progress and impact of the story.

I liked the way this book was written and framed. Naomi was a good central character to focus on and the writing jumping around from various time periods. I liked how it told the story and it was always clear what time period the story was set in. The variety of characters were done well and they all had distinct voices and character points. The moments of action and drama were balanced well with the emotional and quieter scenes. This had me wanting to know the full story from the first introduction and it did not disappoint at all.

Author: Laura Lam
Publisher: Headline
Published: April 30th 2020
Rating: 4.5 stars

Synopsis: Ravaged by environmental disaster, greed and oppression, our planet is in crisis. The future of humanity hangs in the balance - and one woman can tip it over.

Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.

It's humanity's last hope for survival, and Naomi, Valerie's surrogate daughter and the ship's botanist, has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity like this - to step out of Valerie's shadow and really make a difference.

But when things start going wrong on the ship, Naomi starts to suspect that someone on board is concealing a terrible secret - and realises time for life on Earth may be running out faster than they feared . . .

This is The Martian by way of The Handmaid's Tale - a bold and thought-provoking new high-concept thriller

Thoughts: Holy mother of horse shoes! Shut the damn door! This book is PHENOMENALLY good. I picked it up idly of an evening after remembering it was out recently and was instantly drawn into this gripping feminist tale of space exploration.
I immediately felt wonder at Naomi, what she had done and why it was such a secret. Once I realised the beginnings of the WHAT and WHY I was hooked and needed to reach the thrilling conclusion. As The Martian is one of my favourite books, I had HIGH expectations for this one after it was compared to it, and it did not let me down. It’s marvellous.
The story and the CHARACTERS! They’re wonderfully deep and thought provoking. It’s a clever, addictive little book.

Humans have killed planet earth. They have filled the oceans with plastic, burned through all available fossil fuels, decimated all green spaces for urban growth, and climate change is at an irreversible level. The hunt for a new planet to call home has become a life-or-death project and five intrepid female scientists and astronauts led the search for their species' salvation. They were successful. But in an overpopulated world where women are becoming increasingly relegated to the home sphere it isn't five brilliant minds people see but five individuals who are judged for their gender. So these five women decide to take earth's future into their own hands and defy their country in an attempt to save it.

Whilst largely set in space, this remained a very character-focused narrative. Initially I struggled to empathise with the almost dry writing style but quickly acclimatised to it and even appreciated how the unsentimental prose matched the hardness these women were burdened with, where every emotion was seen as a sign of their gender's weakness.

This was such an interesting insight to the gender politics of a world where women were demeaned in every law passed and everyday sexism was accepted absolutely. It felt like a scarily accurate portrayal of our potential future, where a woman's body is never her own, her gender becomes her life-long burden and brilliant minds faced confrontation every time they sought to do some good with it. The diversity of cast also showed how the women were judged for their sexuality, race, and culture. This read like a futuristic The Handmaid's Tale, but female weren't depicted as flawless individuals without their own sins, which I greatly appreciated.

This also tackled the abuse and neglect of the natural world and how even the prospect of earth's imminent death wasn't enough to stop capitalist greed from further destroying the planet. With rising sea levels and overpopulation forcing humanity into increasingly smaller confines and earth's timer quickly running out, humans still sought greed and power wherever possible, bringing the question of if we even deserved saving to the fore.

The morals of the story was very clear, but this also remained an intricate insight to life in space and the trials this alone caused. I can only applaud everything this novel sought out to do and all it accomplished with grace and a fair amount of bite.

I felt like I'd been waiting forever for this book to be released and it didn't disappoint. The premise alone was enough to pull me in but the book is even better than I could've anticipated. Well written with characters you come to care deeply about and an absorbing and often thrilling plot, Goldilocks is most definitely one to watch this year.

Space exploration. It’s always been the unattainable for the regular man. Its been my ultimate dream to see the black and ever stretching unknown. What would you see and hear? Could it possibly be everything that you had hoped or dreamed, or would it never live up to your fantastical expectations? Goldilocks gives the reader a first-class ticket to far away planet, Cavendish. Your feet will be the first to touch down, to see the sights never before witnessed but what would life truly be like being one of those first woman on an unknown world. What happens as one of those chosen ones?

Goldilocks was a no brainer for me. Anything space is an immediate yes. The idea of five women being the first to land on a new potentially habitable planet. Feel the wind through their hair, to touch the dust covering the surface and discovering the best place to establish colonies. The synopsis hinted at secrets being hid in plain sight. The words contained on each page threatened to suck me into its cleverly crafted black hole. I knew I shouldn’t have got so attached to the characters and the wonderfully enchanting setting. Laura Lam has concocted a sublime cocktail of equality, heart wrenching emotion and a narrative that is so stunning that your gut twists and turns.

Earth is in crisis. It is reported that it only has thirty years left. Humanity has ravaged the earth and brought about its demise much sooner than predicted. Our buying of plastics, the eating of red meat beyond our means and polluting our seas. The devastating narrative flew very close to home as this is ultimately the future that our children are facing. However, we have no planet B. Our technology hasn’t been developed that far. It is a race for survival.

With the varied skill set of our protagonists, Goldilocks offered me a rare, money can’t buy look into the fascinating world of space exploration. We had youth, experience, military, medical and botany expertise and teamed with problems with extreme stress we were given a front row seat to witness the good, the bad and the downright evil of humanity. Valerie Black has determined that Cavendish, which happens to be in the Goldilocks zone, is where we need to be. She has the means and more importantly the money with some financial backing to get her and a team there.

Valerie’s company Hawthorne and NASA build a drive that enables them to warp time and space and can make a jump just outside Mars to make the ten light year journey vastly reduced. They build a spaceship that is to carry Valerie, her adopted daughter, Naomi, Hixon, Hart and Lebedeva. Things hit the proverbial fan when new president, Cochran is elected, and the women are removed from the mission – apparently a woman’s place is in the kitchen pffft. Well, this isn’t going to be an order that Valerie Black take lying down. She has pumped everything into this mission and nothing will stop her seeing it through. The women take off from a disused Russian take off strip and essentially have stolen a craft to do it with. Naomi discovers that Valerie has been keeping secrets from her crew mates and doesn’t know if she has ever knew this person she once looked up to as a motherly figure.

Goldilocks is a captivating science fiction novel that investigates the human condition and survival. It was impossible to stop reading.

Firstly, I want to give a huge thank you to NetGalley and Headline for providing me with the opportunity to read and review the E-ARC of Goldilocks by Laura Lam.
Golilocks is a near-future sci-fi thriller named for a specific area around a star where humans may be able to live/survive. Our 5 female protagonists hijack a spaceship to travel to Cavendish, a planet potentially habitable for humans. They leave behind them Earth that has been ravaged by the destruction and damage of humanity, pollution and an increasingly misogynistic society that is leeching away opportunities for women.
Our key character is Naomi Lovelace, the ship's Botanist, adopted daughter of billionaire Valerie Black, who masterminded the whole journey.

Initially, the key themes appear to be those referred to above, a dying world, reduced female rights and opportunities, but it soon veers away from this into something much darker.

As our team of 5 journey away from Earth, initially heading for Mars the story explores Naomi's past and her increasingly complex relationship with Valerie and introduces us to the other members of the team. The character building for all members of the crew is well-managed, 3 dimensional and believable, it provides clarity on their roles and personal situations and shapes the foundations for both the world they inhabit and the thickening plot, gradually a sense of darkness and distrust that runs throughout the book.

This book doesn't shy from facing key and contentious themes including, gender equality and power, capitalism, ecology but, these don't override the story. They are used as tools to support and drive the story forward, challenging the reader to think.

Overall, this book packs a hell of a lot between the covers... politics, global damage, fatal scientific and engineering problems onboard that the crew must solve, interpersonal relationships and of course Valerie's plan, but for me most importantly it is Naomi's personal story. This is where Laura Lam really succeeds taking this book beyond just being a Sci Fi knowledge to making it Naomi's story! A completely human story that pulls you in and keeps you hooked right until the end.

The world-building in Goldilocks is superb. Set in the near-future, climate change has ravaged the planet, causing people to flee their homes en masse, seeking refuge wherever they can find it. Coastal cities are under threat from rising sea levels, and seawalls have been built to give some protection from the encroaching waters. What’s terrifying about it is that it’s an entirely plausible future for the planet that may well come to pass if we continue along our current trajectory. Equally horrifying is the knowledge that there are people in this future world who still deny that there’s an issue, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. My only hope is that people do wake up before we get to this stage, as climate change denial is still far too common in our society.

"So many still don’t believe the Earth is truly under threat, even with all the evidence in front of them"

In the future, you might hope that more progress has been made in the fight for equality, and yet it seems that women are being passed over for promotion and pushed out of their jobs in favour of their male counterparts, once again encouraged to tend to the home and the family – limited to one child unless you’re willing and able to pay the exorbitant fees associated with bringing additional children into an over-populated world. It’s a clear reversal of the progress made so far, and incredibly disappointing to know that it can be undone so easily.

"It hadn’t happened in a moment, but a series of moments, as slow and insidious as the melting of the ice caps."

I don’t want to talk about the plot in too much detail – I went in knowing little about the novel beyond the blurb, and so the plot developments took me by surprise in the best possible way. It’s highly entertaining and has all the ups and downs of a thriller, balanced with just the right level of science to explain the how behind it. It begins with Valerie Black and her crew commandeering the Atalanta as the powers that be attempted to replace Valerie, who has spearheaded the mission since its inception, and her carefully selected crew with men at the last possible moment. So begins an extremely enjoyable science fiction thriller with a strong feminist angle, and I’d recommend it to all, even those with no real predilection for novels with science fiction themes.

Goldilocks has been pitched as The Martian meets The Handmaid’s Tale. I always think that it’s bold to compare a novel in this way, particularly with such heavyweights, although in this case it is valid. The comparison to The Martian is clear – it’s set in space and features a botanist amongst the crew of the Atalanta, albeit one who has more than potatoes up her sleeve. There the similarity ends for me – this is a darker tale and one that doesn’t carry the humour of Watney’s musings. The comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale is also apparent, although perhaps less so – this future earth could be a precursor to Gilead with women being gradually shunted out of the workplace, but having not gone quite as far as Atwood’s dystopia, at least not yet. Needless to say, if you enjoyed either of these novels, you should definitely pick up a copy of Goldilocks.

In Goldilocks, Lam has delivered a fantastic novel that is both entertaining as well as a call to arms. It’s a stark warning of the future we could face, although I think that there’s hope that the situation is not yet past the point of no return in either regard.

4 Stars

Goldilocks is the story of a group of female astronauts who steal a spaceship which was essentially taken from them by NASA and the US governement. They head out into the stars to settle on Cavendish, a planet believed to be "just right" for human habitation, though not everything is as it seems....

Goldilocks started off quite slow for me. We're thrust right into the action of the female astronauts taking off into space, but after that the first third of the story focuses more on the scientific side of space exploration, with the occasional flashback to our main character Naomi's past. Being someone whose brain doesn't really do certain kinds of science, I have to admit I did skim read some parts - as a former geography student I was far more interested in the environmental, economic and social side of this futuristic world than the lab work the characters were doing, but that's not so much a flaw of the novel as it is a personal preference. What I did miss in the first part, however, was a proper character study of the crew beyond Naomi and Valerie, which is why this novel is only getting 4* for me, and not 5*. I feel like it would have been quite easy to show off their personalities more, earlier in the novel.

Once the first act was over, however, that's where I gradually started to fall in love with the tale. The last 40% honestly goes beyond 5* for me. This is where the characters and themes really shine, where the story becomes super thrilling and the threat feels real. The relationships are wonderfully drawn, the dynamics between the characters finally becoming a major focus of the story. Everyone on the ship is at least somewhat morally grey, and to be honest given the circumstances they can't be anything but. It's hard to put into words how great this part of the story is without spoilers, especially if you're into your politics and ethics, and the last page gave me chills.

To conclude, this went from being a story I was a little "meh" about, to one that was breathtakingly good. If you find the story a little slow at the beginning, stick with it! For me personally, it was more than worth it in the end.

Goldilocks is science fiction that feels a bit too close to home for comfort.

The human race has ruined Earth, the ice caps have melted, temperatures rising and some areas of this glorious planet are now uninhabitable. So there are plans to move to a new planet.

Women are now no longer welcome to work in the space industry, or anywhere for that matter, so a group of 5 women, all trained astronauts, medics and scientists decide to take matters in their own hands and steal a rocket. They head to th new planet, Cavendish, via Mars with great plans to set up a utopian world and save humankind.

But, someone has a secret, one that changes everything.

I loved this, from the atmosphere, the world building plans and life on the ship as they travel for many months. The twists and tension keep building in this tale of hope, of love and betrayal and of the dangers of fanaticism. Scarily prescient at times and definitely a cautionary tale. Thought provoking and utterly gripping from start to finish.

Thank you to The author, the publishers and NetGalley for an eARC of Goldilocks. This is my honest, unbiased review.

My thanks to Headline Wildfire for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Goldilocks’ by Laura Lam in exchange for an honest review.

With the planet in crises from environmental disaster, greed, and oppression the possibility of humans being able to colonise a new planet offers the only hope for the future. The planet, Cavendish, is in the Goldilocks zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.

Valerie Black has been preparing to lead a five member all-female mission to establish a base on Cavendish. Among the crew is her adopted daughter, Naomi Lovelace, a talented botanist in charge of introducing new plants to Cavendish that can feed humans.

Black had used her expertise and considerable wealth to make the mission possible. Then at the last minute the new conservative POTUS has decreed that a male crew would be replacing the women. This has happened as part of a movement slowly stripping women of their rights and opportunities.

So the novel opens with Valerie, Naomi, and their three crew mates blasting off from a secret location and stealing the Atalanta spaceship from orbit! New technology has allowed for faster than light travel via a warp ring. The ring is situated just outside Mars’ orbit and so the Atalanta will need to travel there at sublight speeds.

Naturally the President is hopping mad about the women taking the Atalanta and the government are demanding that they turn around and surrender. They are also threatening to send another ship after them. Still the women expected this kind of response.

This is a science fiction thriller and certainly delivers on the thrills. I was riveted by the small and large crises that the women face in their journey. There are also flashbacks to fill in details about Naomi’s past. I won’t say anything more about the plot in order to avoid spoilers but I was impressed by both Lam’s skilful plotting and well developed characterisations. There was one theme that resonated strongly with challenges that we are currently facing.

In terms of the science, Lam says in her Acknowledgments that she has no scientific background though clearly knows who to ask in order to write a science heavy novel such as this. She organises her acknowledgments by scientific topic and provides extra information about her approach to each alongside giving thanks to those who advised her.

I found ‘Goldilocks’ a very engaging and entertaining novel. It is intelligent and thought provoking. I certainly will be seeking out Laura Lam’s other writings and look forward to her future projects.

This is a book unsettling close to our current world situation. The destruction of the planet caused by climate change, high levels of pollution, wearing masks all the time, evolved forms of known diseases affecting the population. For sure, not a book to read if you want to forget the world outside. Although that is also proof of how well crafted it is.

From politics to moral, capitalism, communism, feminism to environment everything is discussed between the characters. There is amazing commentary throughout the book, as the characters try to understand what exactly is wrong on Earth, to prevent the same happening on Cavendish. And all of it sparked the idea of creating a utopia in the new planet. Although they quickly realize that human nature won’t allow the perfect society to exist.

“… one person’s utopia usually means someone else’s dystopia”

Yet, it was their mission to try and found a new and better society where women weren’t pushed-off, everyone had the same rights, and they preserved the environment.

The scientific aspect of the whole adventure was well detailed without becoming overwhelmingly complicated. I can’t vouch for accuracy, although it was scientific-y enough to get me immersed into the spaceship with them.

I have to say that the plot was a little bit predictable, and I wanted the characters to bump into more complex problems. I guess the idea behind this book is to develop the characters, to express all these different points of view, and create discussion instead of a high-action-close-to-death type of book that I was expecting.

Either way, I sympathised with these women and enjoyed reading some of my thoughts through them. Even though the future seemed dark, they fought for what was right and what they believed was the best for all. And in the end, it left a heartwarming sense of hope that everything will work out.

This book is quite similar to the truth the way women are treated and also the current destruction of the planet and that gripped me even more !
I am a big fan of space, sci-fi and dystopian novels, this lost a star for me simply because there were a lot of flashbacks and I’m not too much a fan of them in general but other people may love them!
I enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end with all its twists.

Goldilocks was a book that hit home. Perhaps the current context has made it more relevant, but this exploration of a future that is a worryingly recognisable possibility stands above and beyond that. It is a warning of what could happen, to a world that is rapidly approaching possible tipping points beyond which action might not be possible. It offers a vivid, realistic vision of what the future could be for the environment, for humanity and for women. And it drove it home because above all else this was a story about people, about family, and survival. It was wrapped in something familiar and personal, and that made the narrative all the more powerful.
An aspect of SF that I have sometimes struggled with is believability when it comes to the science, but Goldilocks blew straight through any doubts or reservations I might have had. The details – perfectly balanced to draw us into the world, to make us see it and believe the possibilities of what was being done, without detracting from the story – gripped me. I was fascinated with the botany on the ship, the problem solving, and more than that, it felt real, even when it branched out into space travel beyond anything we have now.
The characters though are what make this book. Every single one of these women is beautifully and thoroughly developed, and even though we don’t follow them all in so much detail as we do Naomi, by the end of the story, I felt as though I knew them just as well. They were fierce women, standing apart because of their talents, as well as their choices to risk everything for a future, and a chance to escape the dystopian society that stood against them. But, each one of them was much more than that. They had complex relationships with each other, with themselves and where they had come from and what they had left behind, hopes for the future, dreams and doubts. There were no linear paths, no simple conclusions, and the characters were constantly growing and changing, shaped by the events occurring in Space and back on Earth, even as they shaped those events.
The writing throughout was spectacular, and the pacing was spot on throughout, the tension bleeding into the pages between moments of calm, of friendship and family. The flashbacks adding depth to the story, adding context and backstory, that not only drove the narrative forward and gave it more meaning but made so that we could understand why these five women are here. Why they took this path, and to understand the decisions that they make. Choices that we would never be able to imagine ourselves making, or that we would claim that we would never be able to make – and to empathise with their choices, to understand the logic that was often uncomfortable.
This was a fantastic read that I devoured in the space of a day as I couldn’t tear myself away from what was happening and the possibility of what could happen next (and most of the time, I was caught by surprise). Goldilocks is a beautiful example of how Science Fiction can explore the future and make it heartbreakingly human. It has left me with a lot to think about and is without a doubt, one of my favourite books this year and probably beyond.

4.5 Stars

Oh this book is great fun. First lets start with my big yes moment. I have often mentioned I have a PhD in evolutionary biology and I am currently a computational Biologist, but my undergrad was in Plant Science. So a book with an MC who is a Botanist, tends to give me trepidation. I didn’t need to worry. The science (at least the amounts in my wheel-house) is gorgeous. I must be the only person in the world that cheered when GenBank was mentioned. This is a near future dystopia and the scientific advancement is so believable. It makes feel so possible. Great science in books like this is such a joy for me. This meant I was fully immersed in this book, in this world and the story.

The dystopia is also scarily realistic, the move towards climate change crisis, combating viral pandemic (which is so pertinent in current times), and the right wing movement in global politics particularly around reproductive rights. This makes this fantastically structured thriller, with its sharp turns and shocking reveals. The plot hurls twists at you when you least expect them. They pack punch and keep those pages turning.

The movement between the timeline of the ship, and the build up for the mission really ramps up the tension and also builds up the human story underneath the science and the adventure. Even with all of this plot and world-building we still get a huge dose of the human stories underneath. Its only fault for me is that a lot of the characters see underdeveloped compared to the real science and the darker world-building. The "Villain" sways more to the cartoonish at times and the MC is can be a little flat. We also don’t get much information into the other characters. This is more evident in the second half of the book where we move away from the believable sci-fi and into the "thriller" side of the story. But it is still an enjoyable story, I was already swept away when the more fanciful moments hit. It has enough tension and "danger" to keep the interest and it goes from hard dystopian sci-fi into fun romp adventure seamlessly.

The ending is a little convenient and that was a little bit of a let down but again didn’t detract from my enjoyment.

Overall, I really enjoyed this, its an exciting adventure with a Sci-fi edge. It made me smile and gasp, turn the pages and keep reading. The pacing is great and in the end it becomes a great adventure.