Girlfriend on Mars

May 8, 2023
Willis braids reality television and the climate crisis with billionaire-sponsored space travel in her breezy speculative debut. Amber Kivinen and Kevin Watkins, both 31, have been dating since they were teens, and they now run a marijuana-growing business out of their Vancouver apartment. In Kevin’s view, they’ve “committed to going nowhere,” so he’s surprised when Amber decides to participate in a reality television program, “a Survivor-meets-Star Trek amalgam,” where two winners will be rocketed to Mars. Amber’s facility with hydroponics makes her well suited for the MarsNow mission, the brainchild of billionaire Geoff Task, a combination Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, whom Kevin describes as “slim and pale, with a regal neck only a guillotine could love.” As Amber advances further in the competition she begins to fall for hunky Adam, who, as the child of Orthodox Jewish settlers in the West Bank, can relate to Amber’s conservative Christian upbringing. Kevin, likewise, begins a fledgling relationship with the couple’s friend Bronwyn, a white woman who wears her hair in dreadlocks. Willis keeps up a light tone and a fast pace even while getting deep into the science behind the Mars voyage, and her satire yields plenty of clever insights on celebrity culture. Readers are in for a treat.