CELESTINE is about fifteen-year-old Celestine Tolland and her parents who, in 1984, were part of a crew of explorers who set off into space. Months after their departure, a virus ravaged the crew of the Phaeacia, killing nearly everyone aboard. The few survivors finally returned to Earth after nearly two years. However, because they were traveling near the speed of light—causing an effect known as time dilation—more than thirty years have passed on Earth. Celestine, who had finished her freshman year in high school in 1984, returns to Earth to begin her senior year in 2022. She is only seventeen, while her former classmates are nearly fifty years old.
Back in her hometown, Celestine faces the same trials that every teen girl faces, but there are many new challenges. In addition to making friends, finding romance, and dealing with mean girls, she has to learn how to navigate social media and the internet, and to avoid suspicious members of the public who fear she is contagious. She also has to deal with survivor’s guilt, living with her foster mother (who also happens to be her childhood friend), therapy, fear of a government conspiracy, and fear of falling ill...
CELESTINE is about fifteen-year-old Celestine Tolland and her parents who, in 1984, were part of a crew of explorers who set off into space. Months after their departure, a virus ravaged the crew of the Phaeacia, killing nearly everyone aboard. The few survivors finally returned to Earth after nearly two years. However, because they were traveling near the speed of light—causing an effect known as time dilation—more than thirty years have passed on Earth. Celestine, who had finished her freshman year in high school in 1984, returns to Earth to begin her senior year in 2022. She is only seventeen, while her former classmates are nearly fifty years old.
Back in her hometown, Celestine faces the same trials that every teen girl faces, but there are many new challenges. In addition to making friends, finding romance, and dealing with mean girls, she has to learn how to navigate social media and the internet, and to avoid suspicious members of the public who fear she is contagious. She also has to deal with survivor’s guilt, living with her foster mother (who also happens to be her childhood friend), therapy, fear of a government conspiracy, and fear of falling ill...
By the time we returned, the bodies of my parents had spent nearly a year in the storage compartment. They were next to the meat, and bagged like leftovers.
On the day we landed, the ship rose and fell with the waves. Designed for either solid ground or a liquid sea, we hadn’t been entirely sure which would be the case. What we had been sure of was that we would never return home. We were wrong.
We few survivors didn’t rush for the doors. We didn’t scramble off. In fact, when our rescuers boarded, we were all sitting or lying on the deck. A nurse lay flat on her back, and was screaming at the top of her lungs. I felt dazed. The surviving pilot sat on the floor, rocking. I was nearest the hatch, the one I had passed through only once, two years before. Smelling the salty sea air, I wondered, after the hell we’d been through, if we had made it back to Earth only to sink and drown in whatever ocean was out there.
When the door opened, I looked up and saw the first man, concealed in a white hazmat suit, with a gun in his hand. Our rescuers came prepared to defend themselves from us. He stopped and looked down at me; I saw his shoulders fall. He holstered his weapon and asked, “Can you confirm that this is the Phaeacia?”
Was he fucking serious? I stared up at him and nodded.
“So, you’re confirming that we are aboard the Phaeacia?” he asked.
I glanced around. It was shadowy, the nurse’s screaming echoed off the hard surfaces, there were people scattered about in little mounds, and lights on panels glowed. In between the screams, when she took a breath, I could hear the hiss of an unseen radio. I held up my hand, and said, “This is the Phaeacia.”
He stepped past me, and a second man, dressed like the first but without the gun and holster, came to me. He looked down, began to kneel but then stood again before his knee could touch the floor. “Can you walk?” he asked.
I just wanted out. We’d been trapped aboard for years, trapped with an unseen killer. It was swift, invisible, still unidentified, and merciless. Entire families had disappeared into body bags. People had died horribly, some with grace, but most without. Imprisoned with fewer and fewer survivors, we had little hope, as we hurtled back toward Earth.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
I looked past him, out the door, and up at the sky. It was so incredibly blue. I hadn’t seen a clear blue sky in so long. My mom wouldn’t get to see it. I looked back toward the infirmary, and then toward the galley, where my parents were in the refrigerated compartment.
The man bent over, his head quite close to mine. I could see his glasses inside his hazmat hood.
Was all this happening? Did we actually land? Were my parents truly dead? Was I really alive? Looking up at the man, I wondered if he were real. Falling forward, I slapped the hard, cool floor. I pounded on it and then sat up. The nurse screamed again. I bit my wrist, hard, as she kept screaming. Putting my forehead to the floor, I pulled my own hair.
“Can you walk?” he asked again. “Are you sick? Who are you? Are you Celestine Tolland?”
This was a rare genre mishmash that somehow manages to pack many elements together, and still execute it successfully.
The sci-fi intro quickly pivots to the throes of first love, an introspective history lesson, and a women’s fiction drama — all wrapped up in a young adult coming-of-age thriller.
In a post-COVID world (*notably: the author rewrote to suit this*), a protesting public is suspicious of the returning space travellers, whom they fear to be contagious. Celestine is fortunate to find new friends at all, and clings desperately to her new clique like a lifeline.
But, having crash-landed into a new decade, she is awash with unfamiliarity.
I was some sort of caveman-spaceman. Honestly, who could’ve predicted someone would invent a world-wide system of linked computers so children could watch porn, adults could flirt with strangers, people could shop at two o’clock in the morning for stuff they didn’t need, and so that an entire subculture could be created that shared cute photos of their cats?
The author’s cheeky references shed light on the strangeness of the modern world as Celestine grapples with new technology and a distinctly different sociopolitical outlook on life:
We’re lucky to live here. We have all the food we need, shelter, it’s a relatively safe place. If you work hard, you can go far in life.
Her belief system is met with ridicule, as her peers explain that she is “sickeningly positive”; they all know that life is “rigged” to serve the rich, the world is a “cesspool”, and “the man” won’t let you win.
Along with these provocative political diatribes, there was also a wide range of emotions bubbling to the surface as we feel every nuance of Celestine’s uncertainty, fear, anger, and grief:
When your mom dies, it’s as if this pleasant hum that you’ve heard all your life goes silent, and the sudden quiet is staggering.
Therapy plays a critical role in Celestine’s journey to recovery and self-acceptance, and leaves a lasting message as the novel achieves its climax.
I enjoyed the unpredictable ride of this thought-provoking and emotional exploration of our changing world, though at times it left me feeling unsettled — but that was the point. With such a complex character like Celestine, and an interweaving story that you couldn't really figure out where it was heading, it sometimes felt like the reality TV that bothered Celestine so much because she couldn’t understand why we keep watching when there is no cohesive plot.
While there is, most definitely, a core story humming beneath all of these elements to tie a profound plot together, it’s one of those novels where you’ll sit for some time afterwards, trying to come to terms with what you just read. I can see this sparking intense book club debates, and being adapted into a film. I highly recommend to any reader, but it will be particularly impactful among a young adult audience.