BOOK REVIEW: 172 Hours on The Moon 🌙

Warning: Potential spoilers and a lot of text. 

These school holidays I made a goal for myself to read different genres of books that I don't usually read. Genres I already ready include romance, drama, biographies and horror... lots of horror. I don't read fantasy because I like to put myself in the scenarios and worlds the books I read are based in, and it is quite difficult to imagine myself as a vampire or fairy or mermaid rather than my own house being haunted or something along those lines.

I find fantasy books don't really play with my emotions much, as I do not find myself particularly engaged with characters with magical powers that I definitely do not have myself. Horror or romance on the other hand plays with my emotions terrifically, and particularly the works of Stephen King make me afraid to turn the page with every new horrific event. 

Other genres I have enjoyed briefly exploring including ones written about natural disasters, notably the Wahine Disaster, The Black Death, 9/11, and the Columbine Massacre. Others include biographies of famous musicians of the late 20th century and early 21st  - those of Elvis, Chester Bennington, Gerard Way, Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell and John Lennon. These are generally people whose music I listen to and I hope to explore new timelines, music genres, and cultures in the upcoming months. 

What inspired me to do this? There are two reasons. I, as well as a few of my classmates, are all preparing for the Reader's Cup competition next term. This competition will consist of reading assigned books and answering questions about them at a Canterbury school meet-up. I got my first book during the last week of term, and after a quick scan of the back summary, I could identify that it would be a fantasy-horror story. I took this as an opportunity to begin my goal. 
The second reason is that my father has always been an avid reader of horror books and music biographies, and seeing his three huge bookcases full of them all inspired me to change up my reading style to see if I could find a new genre I enjoy. 

And so when my father took me up on a roadtrip up to Hastings, up in the North Island, I ensured to pack my two books I planned to read that week. 
One of those books was titled 172 Hours On The Moon, written by Johan Harstad. It was originally published in the Netherlands by the title DARLAH (which I definitely prefer and would probably have reached for it without even reading the summary. I'm guilty of judging books by it's titles!) 

Brief Summary.                                                              Edits of the teenagers! (Sadly these                                                                                                 aren't real)

172 Hours On The Moon is a good book in my opinion. In the story, N.A.S.A is determined to find a rare mineral on the moon that would improve the United States technology manufacturing market, but it is too dangerous. They discovered something very unusual and dangerous about their unused moon base. Because N.A.S.A didn't want other countries on the moon to find out about it, they made a plan. Their plan involved sending three teenagers, the winners of an international lottery they would hold, up to the moon to "celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing.

In a horrifying mess including hatches mysteriously locking themselves, a power outage that could have only been performed manually, and the crew slowly dying off, the two remaining teenagers and one crew member fight to get back to Earth via their second secret moon base. Will they get home? And what even are doppelgangers?

Genre and field of study
I think the genre this book could be categorised in is Adventure/Action or Science Fiction. I think this book is rather mature and even I, a person who strongly believes in government conspiracies and extra-terrestrial life, got spooked by it's contents. 
It's field of study would probably be Astronomy.

Major themes.
I have always believed a good way to sum up a book is in just a few different words. For 172 Hours on The Moon, these words would be moon, extra-terrestrial, unknown. Unknown extra-terrestrial life on the moon - that's a good summary. 

Criticisms I had.
I have always attempted to write events slowly in my own stories. This book is an example of quick-paced events which I did not enjoy particularly. It felt as if every chapter something big and new was happening without time in between to convey emotion, reasoning, descriptions, or detail. Another criticism is that there was no absolutely no reason to include a romance between two of the teenagers. I believe the book would have remained the same whether or not there were any romantic themes, and the emotions of the couple were not explored in any way, not even after a death. In terms of the ending I feel as if it was rushed and I didn't like that. 

What I enjoyed.
I immensely enjoyed reading this book because I love to read about the moon, moon conspiracies, and government conspiracies. It was one of the reasons I picked it in the first place and I definitely did not regret it. I enjoyed how realistic these themes within the book were. I enjoyed the difference in the teenager's personalities and how their countries and personal lives were portrayed. 

In comparison to other books I usually read, this has inspired me to read more books about the moon and space missions because it has allowed me to discover that Science Fiction isn't always about monster, ghosts, or abnormalities in humans. 

I would definitely recommend this book to others, particularly people who are conspiracy theorists, like the idea of going to space, or readers of Science Fiction or futuristic themed books. 
I give the characters a strong 10/10, the plot 10/10, and how it was written and portrayed a 6/10 - just because I felt as if it was too rushed and didn't include as much detail as I was expecting. 
I give it an overall 8.5/10 (or 4 stars). 

Have you read this book, or do you want to after reading this? Leave some feedback for me and I will answer any questions you may have about the book or my opinions.