[review] Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana

By faten.banana - January 11, 2018

For Tara Krishnan, navigating Brierly, the academically rigorous prep school she attends on scholarship, feels overwhelming and impossible. Her junior year begins in the wake of a startling discovery: A message from an alternate Earth, light years away, is intercepted by NASA. This means that on another planet, there is another version of Tara, a Tara who could be living better, burning brighter, because of tiny differences in her choices.

The world lights up with the knowledge of Terra Nova, the mirror planet, and Tara’s life on Earth begins to change. At first, small shifts happen, like attention from Nick Osterman, the most popular guy at Brierly, and her mother playing hooky from work to watch the news all day. But eventually those small shifts swell, the discovery of Terra Nova like a black hole, bending all the light around it.
As a new era of scientific history dawns and Tara's life at Brierly continues its orbit, only one thing is clear: Nothing on Earth--or for Tara--will ever be the same again.

Assalammualaikum.

In my previous post, I did mentioned that I picked this book because I was deemed to do a novel analysis for one of my assessments. I finished this one within two days - forcefully, because I no longer have time to write the paper. Surprisingly, I kinda like this novel a lot than I expected to be. One of the reasons is that I do not normally read sci-fi genre because it just hard to digest. Mind me, but I really love something adventurous with a hint of Greek mythology such as Percy Jackson.

Reading 'Mirror in The Sky' is a new experience for me. Aside from the fact that this is the first time I was challenged to do an analysis - the genre and issues itself come out stronger than I used to familiarize myself with. In a good sense, I think feminist would really love this novel. Why? Because the whole plot literally emphasize about women empowerment. The characters, the stories. You would not find the girls fighting for something stupid, at least I do feel that way.

The fact that this book actually belong to the Young Adult, considering the main character, Tara Krishnan and people surrounding her as well as the setting, the main theme is quite heavy. Khorana tries to emphasize the idea of racism (because the main character is Indian-American living in Greenwich I think, I'm sorry I can't recalled), women empowerment (the girls basically a goal for any women - an intellectual lol) as well as the idea of believing and how would it impact your life

The idea about the mirror planet is quite mind-blowing to be honest. Uh, by the way if you read this novel expecting it to be filled with a lot of scientific terms and space - you probably be so crossed about that because it did not. Lol. The mirror planet is always there to tie all the plot. The fascinating part about the plot is that people keep using the existence of the mirror planet to justify their action. In other word, just imagined about all the choices, options and chances you had to forget just because of restricted circumstances you faced are the ones that being taken by the other you in that mirror planet.

Think about the possibilities.

Think about the outcomes.

Isn't it mind blowing and just weirdly makes you deliberate a lot?

One of the examples (and yes my favorite scene) is shown through Virginia Woolf 'cameo' in this book. First of all, you need to know that Virginia Woolf is a great writer during Victorian era and she committed suicide by drowning herself in a river closed to her house. In this novel, Khorana brings Virginia Woolf as a successful woman who managed to stop a war by imploring writers especially women to write after she survived from her attempted suicide. Leonard, her husband just got in time to save her from drowning.

I almost cried reading that part. It just so sensible and ugh hit me hard.

It is beautifully written taking into account that Aditi Khorana used to be a journalist before she quit to be full time writer :')

So yeah, it has been a while since I last posted any review isn't? I have few in mind but let see if I have the 'feels' to write one hahahahahahah because I just got back to read after a long hiatus. I wish I could include few quotes that I like from this novel but the novel is being borrowed by my friend - so .... yep. Hahahahahahaha!