The Faces of Ceti, by Mary Caraker

Science fiction from 1991, apparently not published as YA though that's how I'd classify it. A group of colonists fleeing a dying Earth is pleasantly surprised to find not one but two habitable planets in the same system. As they've developed a huge political split during the voyage, the colonists settle on both of them.

The larger group settles on Arcadia, the larger planet which has a wide range of vegetation and animal life, including intelligent inhabitants (disparagingly called "yetis") at about a Stone Age level of technology; this group is highly patriarchal and authoritarian, and intends to subdue the inhabitants, by means of genocide if necessary. The smaller group settles on Ceti, which is in synchronous rotation and so has half the planet in permanent daylight and desert, and half in frozen night. It has very little vegetation and animal life, and apparently no intelligent life. This group of colonists is less patriarchal and authoritarian though less doesn't mean not at all.

The protagonist is Maya, a child when the colonies are founded but a teenager for most of the book. She's on the Ceti colony. Ceti runs into trouble very quickly when it turns out that the native vegetation they thought was edible isn't, and the plants and animals they brought with them do poorly. The kangaroo-esque creatures thought to be just animals may actually be intelligent and telepathic, but it's not clear so some colonists hunt them for food. Ceti is trapped between a rock and a hard place: the Arcadia colonists invite/pressure them to join up but Arcadia is basically Gilead from The Handmaid's Tale and is at constant war with the "yetis," women and older teenage girls on Ceti are socially pressured to get pregnant to maintain the colony, and their food supply is incredibly precarious.

This novel has some logic problems as well as odd pacing and is also a bit preachy, but I enjoyed it because it has such vivid, immersive worldbuilding. The Ceti colony feels like a real place and I enjoyed spending time in it, especially as there's not all that much "let's hang out on another planet" science fiction in book form right now, which is my favorite type of science fiction. (Or is there, and I'm just missing it? Feel free to rec me recent SF that's largely about a planet that's cool!)

Mary Caraker is very good at creating real-feeling alien worlds, which is why I went to quite a bit of trouble to locate a copy of this book.

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