Review – Beyond the Mapped Stars by Rosalyn Eves (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 377 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release Date: August 24, 2021
ASIN: B08P46LD1W
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Bertelsen dreams of becoming an astronomer, but she knows such dreams are as unreachable as the stars she so deeply adores. As a Mormon girl, her duty is to her family and, in a not too far away future, to the man who’ll choose to marry her.
When she unexpectedly finds herself in Colorado, she’s tempted by the total eclipse of the sun that’s about to happen – and maybe even meeting up with the female scientists she’s long admired. Elizabeth must learn to navigate this new world of possibility: With her familial duties and faith tugging at her heartstrings, a new romance on the horizon, and the study of the night sky calling to her, she can’t possibly have it all…can she?”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed a copy of this as an ebook from my library.
Thoughts: I really liked the first 60% or so of this story. Unfortunately, the end felt really preachy and got to be a bit much.
The premise of the story is that 17 year old Elizabeth, who lives in a Mormon community, wants to become an astronomer. When her sister is in the middle of a difficult pregnancy, Elizabeth gets the chance to travel out to her sister. This allows Elizabeth to travel, not only to visit her sister, but to stop by Denver where the eclipse is going to be. There she might have the opportunity to meet some of the famous science figures she so admires.
There were things I liked about this book and things I didn’t. I enjoyed the look into a Mormon community of the 1880’s. I also enjoyed watching Elizabeth have a bit of an adventure across the countryside as she journeys to Denver. Getting a glimpse into the astronomy field of this time was also fascinating.
However, Elizabeth comes off as very immature. In fact most of the characters here lack depth and come off as fairly stereotypical. A big “Lesson” of the story is that you don’t have to be just one thing but can blend different aspects of life to suit you…for example you can be religious and study science, you can be a wife and go to school…etc. I thought Elizabeth was very narrow minded herself (after being upset at how narrow minded everyone else was) for her initial views on all of this and the big revelation didn’t seem that big to me.
I also got a bit tired of the emphasis on how everyone was undercutting everyone else. Maybe this was supposed to be historically accurate, but there is so much emphasis on people being mean to each other. Elizabeth was too Mormon or too white or too female, other characters were too black or too unreligious or too male. I think this was supposed to point out how it’s okay for everyone to be different, but it ends up making the story kind of a drag to read and there was just too much emphasis on this. I was like “I get it, I get it, they all hate each other!!! Can we please move on with the story!”
Last complaint is that the end gets really, really preachy. The last couple chapters are basically Elizabeth explaining to us how much she has grown and how she is going to make the world work for her and meet her goals. Even though we had read the story, we had to have Elizabeth explain this to us in a very lengthy way. It left a bad taste in my mouth and made a story I was, for the most part, enjoying go sour at the end.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I liked the setting, time and adventure in this story. The selfish characters, over discussion (and emphasis) of everyone’s differences, and preachiness of the story at the end left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t plan on checking out more books by Eves, but I am not sad I read this. There were things I liked here and things I learned, there were just also a lot of areas the story was lacking in as well.
