I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected for a middle grade book. For a story that is basically Home Alone meets Passenger, Dan Wells writes a credible science fiction adventure, starring a personable twelve-year-old protagonist.
"Zero" (his nickname, because he doesn't like his given name) is one of twenty-thousand people being put in stasis for Earth's first interstellar colony. The ship will be sent on a 105 year journey to a habitable planet 20 light years away, and Zero and his family will "wake up" as if it were the next day, ready to start colonizing. Except there is a malfunction in his stasis pod, and he wakes up alone on a ship that has been abandoned by its pilot. The ship's AI is only moderately helpful, Zero gets to blow up some asteroids, and then space pirates out around the Kuiper Belt try to hijack the ship, and Zero has to fend them off. Of course the pirates include a spunky girl Zero's age.
Being written at the middle grade level, the story requires a few suspensions of disbelief, but the science is not completely implausible and the characters are credible if juvenile. Like Macauley Culkin, Zero sneaks around aboard the ship, setting up traps for the bad guys, who while a bit comical will definitely kill him if they catch him. Their motivations are not completely silly, and the story hummed along.
Is this a worthy heir to the Heinlein juveniles I loved in my youth? It's a bit more juvenile than those, but both the science and the characters are a lot more contemporary, and I really enjoyed listening to this despite the fact that it's a kid's story. I highly recommend it for any budding SF fans.