Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - The Space Between Worlds

I enjoyed this novel! I think I would have enjoyed it better if I was more experienced listening to science fiction/fantasy on audiobook. (This is also a genre I do not read a lot in general.) The narrator, Nicole Lewis, is spectacular and perfectly embodies the scrapiness of Cara. The challenging part on audio for me was that the author does an excellent job of world building but you have to keep track of multiple dimensions and the same characters in different dimensions. If I could go back in time, I think I would have told me to listen to the book and then read the eBook to help everything stick in my mind.

What I particularly liked about this book:

World building is imaginative and explores themes of racism, classism and homophobia.
I loved that the author let us explore this world before diving into the main plot. The plot unfolds slowly and this allows us to immerse ourselves in this world.
Interesting character development that is meaningful - especially in the Cara character.
There were some interesting support characters like Gene and Del that are also well-developed and contribute meaningfully to the story.
Cara's voice is strong in this book. She is a bit sarcastic, humorous, pragmatic, a little idealistic, and scrappy. I loved her.

I do want to emphasize that I would 100% recommend this book to someone looking for a science fiction read. I would caution them about listening on audiobook unless they have experience listening to SFF on audio and can follow a complex world with multiple characters. I definitely think this is a book I'll reread to capture some of the details I missed this go-round.

Content Warnings

szuum's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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manicpixl's review

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challenging emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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dododenise's review

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Awesome book, with great ideas, brilliant world-building and thrilling plot.
I only wished for more Dell and had hoped to see her more, as i thought she was a great character with a glorious relationship to Cara. But there were also so many other fascinating characters that made the story so rich.
In the end, the world-building is what made this story so good.

Content Warnings

evenstr's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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emmyb's review

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

This was a fast-paced, well written story featuring multiverse travel and lots of intrigue. The world-building was a bit confusing through the beginning, having to learn about multiple different versions of the world before fully understanding the base one. There were lots of twists, and I'm interested in reading more from this author in the future.

Content Warnings

likeactualsoulmates's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for my honest review!

Let me just preface this by saying I went into this knowing very little because I KNEW I would love it. So when I read in the first chapter that it was a book about the multiverse and people were able to traverse them I was hooked. For the first few chapters, I was indeed bored, but as soon as we got to a huge revelation about Caramenta's life and being I couldn't stop reading from there. So if you're reading this and the first few chapters seem dull, give it a few more and see how invested the plot twists make you.

We meet a character absolutely selfish and fighting for their well-being, and it honestly is off-putting. I wanted to know more about how this person ended up valuing their benefit so strongly over others, and learn I did. Because many of Cara's character traits that seem offputting at first glance made so much sense once put in perspective with her character arc. The author did such a good job making a believable character reaction to her awful situation, I don't know if anything different would have felt right. Of course, Cara would value self-preservation at the point we meet her, and we get to go on her character arc in this book.

What really threw me off though was how free form the plot was, which after having read it all I believe is what best fits how to tell this story. But for a long, while we had no real end goal, we had just met these characters and we're going along on a ride with them. Slowly at after the mid-way point, things get set in motion and then is when we get our end goal. Once I learned to let go of reaching for an overarching plot and just enjoyed this ride with these characters I really started enjoying this book. Without getting into spoilers, there were many molar dilemmas and genuinely awful situations presented to our characters and we got to see all their reactions and what consequences their actions had.

If you enjoy sci-fi books with a darker theme and don't mind some gore, I would definitely recommend this book!

Now I'd like to make a shortlist with all the quotes I highlighted for this book.

"It shames me more than it shames them, but it does shame us both."
"I am always pretending, always wearing costumes but never just clothes."
"Maybe it's just easier to think something is impossible than to try."
"A rotating black hole does not collapse to a dot. That's the old-fashioned thinking. It collapses to a ring, a ring of neutrons. And if you fall through the ring of neutrons vertically, you wind up in Wonderland. You wind up on the other side of forever." -Michio Kaku
"That was true power. Not to kill a man, but to kill a man in front of his family and force them to agree you did not."
"You can't ever know another person, which is why you should never admire anyone."
"Sometimes, focusing on survival is necessary. Sometimes, it is just an excuse for selfishness."
" "A fallen angel is a demon.", "A being who can enact great change, either way." "
"What does it mean to crave something toxic?"
"Sometimes you have to bleed to know you're human."
"Somehow using someone's need to keep them in line is less awful than using fear."
"The only due powerful men recognize is a life- in service or in sacrifice."
"Dear Brother from another time, today some stars gave in to the black around them & i knew it was you." -Danez Smith
This is grief because a powerful man killed someone I love but will never see consequences."
"Our dead are only weights on our backs when we won't let them walk beside us, when we try to pretend they are ours or they are not dead."

Content Warnings

mar's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

o|-<

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