Regina “Reggie” Hayes wants to be the first woman on the Moon: it’s a goal she’s worked forward to for fifteen years, but her intelligence and drive are frequently undermined by her inability to suffer fools and her…anti-charisma, let’s say. Out of desperation to improve her image, she volunteers to spend a month in a lunar base replica, training some Hollywood pretty boy who is about to begin filming a movie called Escape Velocity. Although Reggie regards Jon Leo as a clumsy fool, she’s surprised to learn that he’s been a space junkie and astronaut fanboy since boyhood, and this — plus mutual physical attraction that’s turned up to 11 the moment they meet — results in an unexpected connection that both resist.

Although I saw this was described as a rom-com, the space angle, plus the interesting prospect of a Goth astronaut who is a terrible people person drew me in. If I had known how steamy it was, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, to be honest. This isn’t a Rachel Joyce title that focuses on human connection, it’s more straight-up erotica that eventually matures with the characters. Honestly, I haven’t read anything this salacious since stumbling on to a certain subgenre in Star Trek fan fiction as a teenager. When I say steamy, I’m not exaggerating: Reggie and Jon are frequently overheating due to proximity to one another, and when they’re in the room together they’re magnetized by the other. To a degree this made me laugh, because Comfort is writing men and women the way that men are scolded for when writing women — with an overemphasis on their appearances and an obsession with sexuality. Reggie’s attraction to Jon is far more shallow than his to hers, because he’s awed by her intelligence as well as her beauty, whereas she thinks of him as an uncomfortably attractive himbo who has the redeeming virtue of knowing a lot of astronaut trivia. As the book progresses, she learns that he’s quite curious, watching a lot of science documentaries, and each of them challenges the other’s weak areas and bids them to grow.

This was an awkward read with moments of interest that eventually turns into a compelling story as the characters begin growing. I liked the premise, and Reggie was a fun character — the kind who no one wants to be around in real life, but who makes for an entertaining story. A bit like Sheldon Cooper in terms of obnoxiousness and social intelligence, but without his charming naivete. The setting, which was the most interesting part of the premise for me, is underutilized, with far more telling than showing. What we do see seems incredibly unhelpful for an actor in training, as he spends long hours sitting in a rover watching Reggie pick up rocks — and lusting feverishly while ignoring the script he’s meant to have memorized by now. The central issue for me is that both characters ignore the entire premise of their time together in favor of frustratedly pining for one another’s body. If this book had been written by a man, it would be absolutely slammed with bad reviews because of how many times Reggie’s ‘great chest” is commented on (by her, by her coworkers, etc) — though Jon’s shoulders, chest, and thighs receive equal mention. What doesn’t happen is the job they’re supposed to be doing: Reggie avoids taking social media posts, despite specifically being told by NASA to post, and instead of training Jon she leaves him sit in the rover while she pursues her completely personal interest in looking for cool rocks. They’re both smarter characters than this, and the novel comes off more as pure comedy-erotica with a NASA setup — which is not a phrase I’d expect to write. I was strongly tempted to DNF at several points, but I’m glad I persisted, given the way the characters inspired one another to grow beyond who they were.

Highlights:

He made a frustrated noise, then said, “I do know other words besides cool, believe it or not.”
“Such as?” Reggie tried to think of something else a himbo from Los Angeles would say. “Tubular?”
“Sorry, did you say tubular?”
Reggie turned around to look at him, indignant. “What? That’s a thing people say!”
“If you’re a superpowered turtle eating pizza in a sewer. Sure.” He looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“Oh, so sorry I’m not hip to all the current slang. I didn’t have time to watch Cartoon Network when I was learning to fly fighter jets faster than the speed of sound.”

Reggie pasted on her practiced smile. Katya always called it the “bear-killer” smile, though Reggie had never really gotten the joke. Reggie had never killed a bear; she’d punched one, and it was only that one time. The cosmonaut had a strange sense of humor.

“Jon, you’re guarding the rover because there is no atmosphere on the moon. Even with a protective spacesuit on, every second an astronaut is in the vacuum of space and thus away from the safety of the pressurized habitat, her life is in grave danger. Out here, the rover is our one and only lifeline, and we only have each other to count on. If I fall and puncture my spacesuit, you will have mere minutes to rescue me before the oxygen evaporates from my lungs, all the moisture in my body sublimates, and my cells become irreversibly irradiated.”
Behind his glasses, Jon’s eyes went wide with alarm.
She smiled serenely. “And of course, there’s the moon pirates.”

Related:
Riding Rockets, Mike Mullane More astronauts and obsession with genitalia.