A few years back, I got in the habit of taking incredibly detailed handwritten notes while I was reading. I don’t talk about it much on this blog, but my memory for books is…weird. I’ll remember scenes, moments, snippets of dialogue…I feel like remember books in feelings, and almost in colors, if that makes any sense. But a lot of the time, for me, the details of the book fade pretty quick. I wish it was different & that I could remember everything I read in glorious detail, but that’s just not how it works for me.

So, yeah. I started taking notes. But…it didn’t last. Sometimes I realized I was doing more note-taking than actual reading, and I quickly grew exhausted by it. The idea behind the notes was to help me remember things (in particular when it came to a series), but in addition to finding the process too time consuming, I also realized I was never going back to check the notes anyhow. At this point all I do is mark down a couple quotes I like, so I have one to use with my Bookstagram post. Then get these reviews written, and hope it’s enough to keep the memory of the book a bit fresher, if I need it.

But after finishing Laura Lam’s sci-fi novel, Goldilocks, I’m kinda wishing I had taken some notes, because oof…there were more than a handful of moments & passages where it felt like Lam had literally looked into the future when she wrote this. Things that felt eerily similar to the current state of the world amidst a global pandemic. It was deeply unsettling. There are plenty of parallels being drawn between Goldilocks and The Handmaid’s Tale (even by Laura Lam herself, on Goodreads…”Goldilocks is The Martian by way of Handmaid’s Tale”), but since I’ve neither read nor seen The Handmaid’s Tale, I’ll have to take everyone’s word for it.

Goldilocks is probably as realistic a sci-fi novel as I’ve read in a very long time. Like, things that happen in this book feel entirely plausible, if not likely. The cli-fi elements at work in Goldilocks are honestly terrifying, and felt so incredibly real. The minor detail that Earth-bound folks tend to wear masks because the air quality is so poor certainly had a chilling effect on me.

This book is vehemently anti-capitalist, and deeply feminist. And again, the things that are happening in this book feel so eerily similar to things occurring in the world right now. In Goldilocks, the government is grotesquely focused on regulating reproductive health, stripping women of so much control over their bodies. Which really doesn’t feel like a stretch living in the US in the year 2020.

The plot of the book is deceptively simple: five women astronauts boost a space shuttle & head for a newly discovered planet named Cavendish, which seems similar enough to Earth to support human life. Earth is dying. We need something new. But there’s an angle to the story that reminded me a bit of the movie Elysium, where it seems like Cavendish may be reserved for the very wealthiest, while the rest of us linger & perish on Earth.

The chronology bounces around quite a bit, with Naomi Lovelace as the story’s main character. She’s the botanist for the expedition, but she also has very personal connections to the woman who has funded & orchestrated the whole operation, Valerie Black. Valerie is effectively Naomi’s surrogate mother, and we get to explore the not-always-ideal relationship between these two women over the years.

Goldilocks is a book that quietly sneaks up on you & draws you into this slightly-more-bleak version of our world, and it packs a pretty heavy emotional punch. I truly can’t recall the last time I read a sci-fi novel that felt so disturbingly possible. This is a story that’s occasionally very bleak and somber, but also one that’s full of glimpses of hope, and of a (hopefully) brighter future. Oof…this is a story that’ll stay with me for a long time.