Review: Below Zero

Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hannah was failing High School, a true rebel without a cause, until a pathetic chat-up line from another student piques her interest in space (specifically, why would sunsets be blue on Mars, aka the Red Planet?). From then on Hannah was fascinated by space and dreamed of joining NASA.

Hannah is in a remote area of Norway testing out equipment for the next Mars expedition in an environment as close as to that of Mars as can be achieved on Earth, but she has slipped and fallen down a crevasse, twisted her ankle, and her only hope of rescue is the man who vetoed the funding for her invention in the first place.

I think this could have worked better as a full length novella as Hannah appeared to have a lot of backstory which was never properly explored, like why she only does one-night stands and feels that people would get bored of her/disgusted by her if they got to know her - I think this would have worked better if perhaps we had seen this rather than being told it.

Ian, a distant relative of Hannah's friend Mara, was an infant prodigy, a member of the Mars Curiosity Rover team at the tender age of eighteen. Mara pulls a few family strings to get Ian to agree to be interviewed by Hannah for a paper she has to write for college (interview someone who has your dream job) and it's insta-lurve.

This novella has all the classic Ali Hazlewood clichés and it is part of a trilogy featuring three female best friends which ae all a bit same-same.

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