172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad
Release Date: April 5, 2012 (UK)
Publisher: ATOM
Rating: Enjoyable

It's been decades since anyone set foot on the moon. Now three ordinary teenagers, the winners of NASA's unprecedented, worldwide lottery, are about to become the first young people in space--and change their lives forever.
Mia, from Norway, hopes this will be her punk band's ticket to fame and fortune.
Midori believes it's her way out of her restrained life in Japan.
Antoine, from France, just wants to get as far away from his ex-girlfriend as possible.
It's the opportunity of a lifetime, but little do the teenagers know that something sinister is waiting for them on the desolate surface of the moon. And in the black vacuum of space... no one is coming to save them.


In this chilling adventure set in the most brutal landscape known to man, highly acclaimed Norwegian novelist Johan Harstad creates a vivid and frightening world of possibilities we can only hope never come true. - Goodreads

The beginning of the novel is very slow paced, as a lot of time was spent showing the main characters and their lives before going to the moon. I think less time could have been spent with these teenagers, and more time should have been spent with the teens as they trained with NASA in preparation for their flight. I wasn't really that interested in their lives beforehand, and they all had a similar backstory anyway. I also would have liked to have spent time at NASA because some friendships and relationships formed there, and while these weren't major plot points, they were thrown in my face once we joined the teens again afterwards.

Once they actually got to the moon, however, the plot really picked up and everything went crazy. I absolutely loved it. I loved the mystery of this threat that was on or to do with the moon, and I loved that the characters had no idea how to deal with this. It was chaotic and it was brilliant.

I didn't feel connected to any of the main characters, probably because we spent more time with their backstory than we did with them as people, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I really liked the secondary characters, however. They were (mostly) all very interesting, a lot more so than the mains.

My favourite part of the book was definitely the last fifty or so pages. It was soooooo creepy! That's all I can say without spoiling the novel, but EEEEEP, it was scaring! It gave me major chills as I was reading it.