Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

38 reviews

deetabz's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Murder

Moderate: Blood, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Classism, Homophobia, Torture, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, and Grief

Minor: Sexual content, War, and Racism

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Murder, Violence, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, and Death of parent

Minor: War, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Vomit, Child death, and Suicide

apocellipse's review

adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Racism

tangleroot_eli's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

It's only March, but the books I read for the rest of 2024 will have a hard fight to unseat this one as my favorite of the year.

Johnson's worldbuilding is exquisite. I got attached to her characters within paragraphs of their introductions. Her portrayals of classism, racism, and colonialism felt like constant gut-punches. If Spouse weren't waiting to read it before we have to return this copy to the library, I might've flipped right back to the beginning and started reading it again the moment I finished it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, and Classism

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Gore, Child abuse, Addiction, Homophobia, Violence, Vomit, Child death, Confinement, Medical content, Racism, Death of parent, Deportation, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Kidnapping, Suicide, Gun violence, War, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, and Miscarriage

Graphic: Environmental degradation Minor: Whorephobia, Child labor

prosenheim's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, War, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Classism

Moderate: Deportation, Gore, Child abuse, Addiction, and Abandonment

Minor: Terminal illness, Adult/minor relationship, Lesbophobia, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, and Suicide

workingdaley's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I read this book for a book club that I was in, and I found it to be a fascinating read. Not my favorite by any means, but I find the concept of turning something as aspirational as dimension traveling into grunt work for the poor that (mild spoilers)

the rich are actively trying to replace

to be deeply interesting. It's one of the things that I love about Afrofuturism. It's important to take these concepts that we are aspiring to and consider who it is being built off of and what the consequences of that are for society at large. This book does a great job of exploring that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Classism, Death, and Deportation

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual violence, Grief, Gun violence, Violence, Emotional abuse, Murder, and War

Minor: Abandonment, Death of parent, and Sexual content

thenextbookdilemma's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

Where do I even start with this book?

First it stretches your mind, as I think is always the case when parallel universes are explored. This idea challenges our very existences and always throws me for a loop

I, like many of you (probably…maybe?) have considered on multiple occasions the question of, how might my life have been different if X had gone differently, or if I hadn’t met Y, or if Z had happened ? Well, Cara knows the answer to that question in 372 different worlds. 

A very brief summary: This book is about multiverse travel. A woman has died on 372 different parallel universes and thus is able to visit them and gather data for her home earth. But soon she discovers that she is involved in something far more nefarious than expected. 

I LOVED this book. The characters and all their iterations were so interesting and human. The worlds were well-developed and captivating. There were multiple plot twists and a romance subplot that I adored. The writing was beautiful and impressive especially for a debut!

But this book also makes you think about who you are, and who you could have been. 

Would I be the same person if my circumstances had been different? Johnson says no, and I agree. We are not our circumstances, but we are not unaffected by them. Who might you become if your means of survival are not provided to you? How can we judge somebody who has to fight to survive, who lacks the same amount of security as we do? Who doesn’t know where their next meal or a roof over their head is coming from? It’s a reminder that the family you are born into, the class, the race, the place, is all just luck. And that very truth can be humbling or infuriating or devastating. I loved the way Johnson wove these questions of equity and classism into a gorgeous multiverse novel and I will long think about all the Emmas I could have been or perhaps, all the different Emmas I am parallel to this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Classism, Gore, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Child death, Suicide, Addiction, Child abuse, and Lesbophobia

lbelow's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

5.0

This book packs a wallop. The constant tension of the plot kept me turning the pages, watching as Caralee grappled with her emotions and learned to see people as multifaceted, as deserving of love and empathy. In so doing, she learns to see herself in the same way, to stop thinking of herself as nothing and trying to prove she is something by way of a script other people have written. The settings come alive like characters themselves, but it's the people in the book and the choices they make in different realities that gripped my heart and squeezed. I cannot wait to read more from this author because this book was next level! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Torture, Violence, Physical abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Xenophobia, and Grief

raptorq's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Classism, Domestic abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Gun violence, Cultural appropriation, Medical content, and Suicidal thoughts

leannanecdote's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Drug use, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Rape, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, War, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Death, Abandonment, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Murder, Racism, Self harm, Xenophobia, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Trafficking, and Vomit