Many hard science fiction authors use the early Apollo astronauts as models for their characters. The trite pilot, cowboy, large-ego, insensitive, over-competitive, womanizing, straight, white, male space explorer isn't really accurate to real astronauts and a bore.

Kate Hope Day's (@katehopeday) In the Quick features June, a natural engineer whose skills are honed by her late uncle, Peter Reed. June's coming-of-age arc is fascinating. Most of the plot is driven by a McGuffin: a fuel cell worked on by students and guided by Reed.

However, the book just stops at the end without a satisfying end of the plot arc. I have heard that In the Quick had literary parallels to Jane Eyre by Jane Austin, but these superficial similarities don't really solve the problem in the book.

In the Quick feels feminist without deeper philosophical notes, it doesn't have the comedy or detail of hard science fiction like The Martian by Andy Weir, and its plot fizzles out after the climax (however, I haven't read Jane Eyre for a while). I read the audiobook, but I have heard that the dialogue doesn't have quotation marks.

I would recommend this book for what I used it for, it filled a time in my life where I needed to avoid thinking about my own problems. I need to find some more feminist science fiction.