Oh, this begins as a beautiful story: poetic and full of the innocence and the wonders of children, allowing us to see the world as adults through the eyes of a child, and then it clashes with the realities of a politicised world, human trauma, and the unavoidable politics of our age.

I don’t mind the political leaning of the novel, in fact, it’s more my flavour, but I had to continually remind myself that this was fiction, because the prose was deeply philosophical and in places, its mimicry of reality felt somewhat irresponsible.

There were several highly relatable moments, especially that of ‘discussing bottomless catastrophe with a nine year old’. I was reminded of my niece, devoted to saving turtles and obsessed with the health of our oceans, who at nine years old would watch a documentary before she’d watch a cartoon, and this is the generation we’re raising and influencing (for the good of their future) against a backdrop of blinkered politicians.

These are children growing up in a world of people obsessed with consumerism and waging wars and content to destroy the environment. The atheist faith present in the main characters of the novel delivered only an abysmal bubble of hopeless hope. The father was continually confounded (bewildered) by the boundless inexplicable love humans in relationship share for one another, and admirably convicted by a collective conscience that the religious right don’t (seem to) possess.

This started well and beautiful, real, and tragically human, and for 50% I was absorbed and enthralled. It went a bit sci-fi in the middle, delved oddly into the cyber world of social media for a few chapters, dabbled with unwanted fame, but at 75% the whole story dissolved like two day old wet paper…and ended as a tragically confused science fiction novel that believed itself to be real, wrapping a vulnerable child in a father’s reckless penchant to ‘let things happen’ without planning or strategy or responsibility, more intent to connect with extraterrestrial lifeforms than to properly care for the medical-emotional needs of his own vulnerable son—even though it seems that is precisely what his intent was in searching for other-life—and it was the father’s ‘system’ of beliefs that lead to their ultimate demise.

It's worth reading, despite following a disappointingly delusional trajectory. A 5-star launch that peters out to a 3-star finish...