I thought Astra was worth five stars when I first read it, and a reread hasn't changed that at all. I am in awe of this book, the way it combines a deeply moving character-driven story with an intensely imagined and very interesting setting. (I say "combines" but they are inseparable from each other.) All the characters in the very diverse cast are so well-defined, even from a few lines, and the technology, politics (both progressive and regressive), ethics and culture of the Gaian state are very well thought out. But it's the story-arc of Astra herself that makes this book. As a young child, a committed and unquestioning member of her nation, she is forced to make a decision whether or not to go against a government directive to her whole age cohort to get injected with "security serum". This will make her healthier, stronger, emotionally better balanced, and more in tune with her friends (it's initially surprising, but made entirely credible, that the Gaians in this future fully embrace GMO). Against that, it might limit her intelligence, and she desperately wants to be a genius scientist when she grows up. Far too young, she is faced with the choice to go against the state, and keep a secret for the rest of her life, in order to later serve it better. But keeping that secret becomes an intolerable pressure, especially when she becomes subjected to the effects of all the normal teenage hormones, which all her stronger, happier friends are seemingly able to cope with, and the state itself is increasingly revealed as less idealistic and tolerant than it might have first appeared. And if the secret comes out, it won't be just she who suffers ...
The tension builds brilliantly to the story's conclusion, and though the viewpoint convincingly inhabits Astra at various ages, whether 7, 12 or 15, it never reads as a children's or YA novel. The only negatives I could find are that there might be some exposition in the first couple of chapters that could have waited till later, and the rebuilding of the world after the Dark Time seems to have been better handled and more successful than I think might perhaps be the case. But those really are quibbles. This series (now complete with the fourth book, Stained Light, hence my reread) really does deserve to be much more widely read than it is.
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![Astra: The Gaia Chronicles Book 1 by [Naomi Foyle]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61TGy8dmA7L._SY346_.jpg)
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