Book review : To The Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage

  Oh My Gosh, so I assumed this was going to be a book for me, in fact, I was fully prepared to LOVE love this book to the ends of the earth.  To the Moon and Back, indeed. 

    Obviously I'm telling you this because, spoiler.  I did not love this book that much, maybe to Tallahassee and back.  

This is a complicated story of a a young woman who has worked her entire life to become an astronaut. As readers follow her journey, they move through her life and grapple with her character as she decides what it means to be a Cherokee, a scientist, a lesbian and a sister, aunt and daughter, and indeed, there is more. It is a very ambitious novel addressing identity, family, obligations and ambitious and belonging. 

   In the end I struggled with this one. On one hand I was very invested in the main character getting to space. On the other, I was somehow not invested in chapters and chapters and chapters of relationship drama.  Be it from her Mother, her sister or her girlfriend, it eventually felt overplayed.  I know that some people's lives are indeed like that, but at one point if I wasn't 3 hrs to the end, I would have just DNF the whole thing. 

   Despite me not really enjoying the novel, I think it is well written and for many this is one they might want to read. In general picks from Reese's book club tend to be very readable  I am a bit embarrassed to admit, I just had to look up exactly who Reese is and after looking over her picks, this one seems like one of the more adventurous picks. The rest that I viewed, seemed to be sort of safe book club picks.  This one was more on the wild side, and, with her cinematic background, I can entirely entirely see this book being made into a mini-series - the amount of family drama would draw in quite the audience. I did enjoy that it was written as a contemporary novel and that made it feel quite real.  Characters were well fleshed out though none were particularly likeable to me. 

So... would I recommend this novel?  Possibly. I would not recommend it to just anyone, but for the right person, this will be a 5 star read. 

For me it was about a 3.25  but that's all based on vibes alone. 

First Published :  9/2/25

Pages: 448

Available as an Audio Book : Yes   ~ 14 hrs

Trigger Warnings:  poverty, racism, classism, domestic violence, medical issues, body horror, slavery, 

(this is not a full list, read responsibly)