[A] thrill ride… Itäranta’s book does what solarpunk should do: it presents a bold vision, with a road map, and, crucially, it clarifies what hope is and what it can do.

The prose of the book is measured, evocative, lucid, poetic, full of gravitas and emotion alike. This puts Itäranta in the same linguistic league as Nabokov, Conrad, Thomas Olde Heuvelt and Hannu Rajaniemi, masters in dual languages… [A] bravura, complex tapestry of a book.

I was put strongly and favourably in mind of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). Both books are restrained novels; both start in fog, and spend more time looking inward than outward; both are about narrators who don’t allow themselves to know everything a reader might want to know. And both are novels in which the closing pages unleash a painful clarity.

Emmi Itaranta’s semi- mystical cosmology is captivating.

Just read it, it is a great book.

Brilliantly weaves together its two central questions: whether one marriage can survive, and whether humanity can find a way to thrive that does not ultimately rest on exploitation and inequality.

A quietly powerful meditation on the human need to share life and love with others.

The Moonday Letters wraps a lament for Earth’s damaged ecosystems into the story of lovers at an interplanetary crossroads… [A] melancholy, lovely, and alarming tale about humanity in crisis.

The Moonday Letters is a remarkable book, full of imaginative worldbuilding, engaging characters and beautiful writing.

Wonderfully bridges the gap between sci-fi and fantasy (and also romance) that fans of any of the genres will be able to enjoy.

The Moonday Letters is as beautifully strange, and as strangely beautiful, as all of Itäranta’s books so far.

With themes of LGBTQIA+ and immigration deftly explored, Itäranta has crafted a timely and provocative tale.

Emmi Itäranta writes about the environmental crisis and human rights in an accomplished and not at all simplified manner in her new novel The Moonday Letters. (…) The sharpest edge of the lyrical epistolary novel is honed by Itäranta’s style of describing future settings and society in a way that does not pre-empty the possible world with explanations; instead, the details hint subtly at the whole.

Itäranta’s newest lingers beautifully and makes your heart ache. It is like a song about love and neverending homesickness.

The Moonday Letters is in many ways an enjoyable novel.

The portrait it paints of the future of the humanity is by no means sunny, but at least some are willing to risk life and limb in order to build a better future. That said, the ominous scenarios Itäranta depicts are already present.

The way the plot is revealed little by little through memories, conversations and healer journeys is truly fascinating and may well remove the heaviness the topics might otherwise bring with them.

The reality of the novel opens beautifully spherical and overlapping, like planetary orbits or a shamanic journey.

The Moonday Letters is a multilayered novel in which the reader will find something new on each re-reading. Yet the plot is fairly straightforward and easy to follow, and there seems to be nothing unnecessary in the book. Itäranta is one of the most skilled Finnish contemporary writers and each one of her novels has been a pleasure to read.