Book Review: The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper

The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
Genre: Contemporary
Release Date: 4th February 2020
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:

As a successful social media journalist with half a million followers, seventeen-year-old Cal is used to sharing his life online. But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus.

Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another “Astrokid,” and finds himself falling head over heels—fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection. But when secrets about the program are uncovered, Cal must find a way to reveal the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.

Expertly capturing the thrill of first love and the self-doubt all teens feel, debut author Phil Stamper is a new talent to watch.

Honestly, I had high hopes for The Gravity of Us and ultimately I feel really let down. If you’ve seen my reading vlog, you’ll have seen that I was very keen for this book, especially in the beginning. But the whole thing started to go downhill quite quickly.

I adored the basic premise of the main character being a social media star and a wannabe journalist. The mixture of social media fame and reality TV was really interesting, and I think a lot of Booktubers and perhaps book bloggers will be able to relate and connect to the main character, Calvin.

My issues lie with the various relationships that the author tried to portray in this book. Firstly, and most importantly, I thought that Calvin’s relationship with Leon was incredibly rushed. The two of them were telling each other they loved each other very early on, and kept talking as though they had known each other for years. We didn’t have time to get to know Leon before Calvin jumped into a relationship with him.

Calvin also ditched his supposed best friend, who we’re introduced to at the beginning of the book as though she is going to be an important character with a side plot. It was brought up that Calvin ditched her, but I didn’t think there was any progression there, nor was it addressed very well. It was all a bit lacklustre. I thought her potential side plot sounded really interesting, and I would have loved to see more of that. Instead it was as though the author forgot he had introduced her, and her story turned into more of an afterthought.

I’m really disappointed by this one, and I’m going to mope about it for a while.