Scan barcode
blakethebookeater's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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
5.0
This book is perfect. It took a second for me to adjust to the worldbuilding, but once I did holy crap it just FLOWED. Cara is a traverser, which means she travels to other parallel Earths to collect data for the Eldridge company. She’s valuable because of her hard life, many of her other selves have died (and you can’t travel to other worlds where you exist).
The dichotomy in this book was RIDICULOUSLY well-written. We have the people of Ashtown (where Cara is from) who live in poverty and are looked down upon as savages by the citizens of the walled neighboring city of Wiley. The classism of this book is so poignant, and seeing Cara trying to weave her way between these two worlds was just as important and interesting as seeing her actually travel to different worlds.
I don’t want to give away much about the plot because of how shook it made me, but if you’re looking for extremely well-written and well-plotted sapphic sci-fi that will make you think long after closing the cover, than this one’s for you.
5/5 stars
The dichotomy in this book was RIDICULOUSLY well-written. We have the people of Ashtown (where Cara is from) who live in poverty and are looked down upon as savages by the citizens of the walled neighboring city of Wiley. The classism of this book is so poignant, and seeing Cara trying to weave her way between these two worlds was just as important and interesting as seeing her actually travel to different worlds.
I don’t want to give away much about the plot because of how shook it made me, but if you’re looking for extremely well-written and well-plotted sapphic sci-fi that will make you think long after closing the cover, than this one’s for you.
5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Racism, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, and Drug use
lanidon's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
I'm conflicted about this book. Part one is so incredibly good, part two onward changes place to be political and familial intrigue. There's a lot of time spent humanizing versions of the MCs abusive ex. The plot is just different than I expected it wanted. There were threads that I LOVED but I wish more time was spent studying the main character than these evil powerful men I wasn't interested in.
It also feels like just a bit of a queer bait. Just a smidge. Part one has bits and pieces about her attraction to the love interest and dalliances with her in other worlds. That's dropped until nearly the very end where they ride off into the sunset together. Give me some yearning, give me some bonding. You gave me pages and pages about her abusive ex but nothing sweet to grasp onto with the actual romance!
It also feels like just a bit of a queer bait. Just a smidge. Part one has bits and pieces about her attraction to the love interest and dalliances with her in other worlds. That's dropped until nearly the very end where they ride off into the sunset together. Give me some yearning, give me some bonding. You gave me pages and pages about her abusive ex but nothing sweet to grasp onto with the actual romance!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Car accident, and Murder
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Dimensional travel is possible, but only if your doppelganger is dead. The MC travels to a world where her double was recently murdered, and the plot gets going in earnest from there. I was pleasantly surprised by how deliberate the pacing is, it doesn't rush to get us to that very important journey. Instead we linger in the setup, getting to know the hub world and at least one other before she goes to the plot-important one for the first time.
The MC is mostly a reliable narrator, but when she travels she can be very wrong about what’s happening in a particular world. This is used to its full advantage, creating subversion and surprise as she discovers mistakes in her assumptions and the new possibilities opened by those gaps. The plot which I thought would take the whole book to tell turned out to just be the first half before twisting all that was set up before to tell an even more interesting story. I would have been content with the story I thought I was getting, but I love what it turned out to be. This even included two of my favorite things: heists and interpersonal politics. So much of this book is built on understanding people, cultures, and how shifts in either between worlds change what can and cannot be done, what words to use, and how things will go down once they’re in motion.
The world-building (heh) is really good! It focuses on two main places and then gradually describes them by talking about how things (and people) are the same or different in the parallel worlds. It creates a feeling where every description of the background or a character is there for a reason. Would we normally care that this house is white? Maybe, maybe not, but if it’s a different color on most worlds and this time that indicates something important because of the knock-on effects of changes like [pick whatever spoiler you want], that makes it feel like the details matter. And, hey, even if you won’t remember what that house color was it still did its job and informed the world. This could have been and info-dumping nightmare of a book and instead it uses everything to make the worlds feel significant with its focus. It keeps the number of frequently referenced worlds low enough for the important ones to be memorable, but also giving little tidbits about ones we won’t actually get to see. I love parallel worlds and time travel stories and this was fantastic. The number of secondary characters whose variants I had to track was mercifully short, letting me enjoy the machinations without getting confused about which versions did or said which thing.
The backstory (and, increasingly, the main story) is chock-full of trauma, for the MC and most of the secondary characters as well. Check the CWs, because the book’s MC is dead on over 370 worlds and we find out many of the common reasons. It’s a steady drip of sometimes horrific details that fit the story and matter to current events, but none of the worlds are kind to children, and many of them were especially rough on the MC. It’s a great premise, and I appreciate how the book uses it to comment on the classism and racism inherent in a system which requires people who are dead elsewhere, which means they’re probably not privileged in the main world either. Little details like that are used really well throughout the book and I loved every minute of it.
The MC is mostly a reliable narrator, but when she travels she can be very wrong about what’s happening in a particular world. This is used to its full advantage, creating subversion and surprise as she discovers mistakes in her assumptions and the new possibilities opened by those gaps. The plot which I thought would take the whole book to tell turned out to just be the first half before twisting all that was set up before to tell an even more interesting story. I would have been content with the story I thought I was getting, but I love what it turned out to be. This even included two of my favorite things: heists and interpersonal politics. So much of this book is built on understanding people, cultures, and how shifts in either between worlds change what can and cannot be done, what words to use, and how things will go down once they’re in motion.
The world-building (heh) is really good! It focuses on two main places and then gradually describes them by talking about how things (and people) are the same or different in the parallel worlds. It creates a feeling where every description of the background or a character is there for a reason. Would we normally care that this house is white? Maybe, maybe not, but if it’s a different color on most worlds and this time that indicates something important because of the knock-on effects of changes like [pick whatever spoiler you want], that makes it feel like the details matter. And, hey, even if you won’t remember what that house color was it still did its job and informed the world. This could have been and info-dumping nightmare of a book and instead it uses everything to make the worlds feel significant with its focus. It keeps the number of frequently referenced worlds low enough for the important ones to be memorable, but also giving little tidbits about ones we won’t actually get to see. I love parallel worlds and time travel stories and this was fantastic. The number of secondary characters whose variants I had to track was mercifully short, letting me enjoy the machinations without getting confused about which versions did or said which thing.
The backstory (and, increasingly, the main story) is chock-full of trauma, for the MC and most of the secondary characters as well. Check the CWs, because the book’s MC is dead on over 370 worlds and we find out many of the common reasons. It’s a steady drip of sometimes horrific details that fit the story and matter to current events, but none of the worlds are kind to children, and many of them were especially rough on the MC. It’s a great premise, and I appreciate how the book uses it to comment on the classism and racism inherent in a system which requires people who are dead elsewhere, which means they’re probably not privileged in the main world either. Little details like that are used really well throughout the book and I loved every minute of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Racism
Minor: Addiction, Child abuse, and Child death
CW for colonialism, racism, homophobia, gaslighting, confinement, child abuse (backstory), addiction (backstory), child death (not depicted), domestic abuse, violence, gore, blood, torture, major character death, death.dianna_reads's review
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, and Toxic relationship
catsy2022's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Rating: B+
I turn away, trying to remember the last time I cared about anything to scream for it.
The Space Between Worlds is a refreshing and unexpected read for 2020. I'd place this in the same camp as The Last Policeman and The Gone World which I also read this year. This book is about Cara, a traverser who works for the mysterious Eldridge company; a traverser is someone who travels between worlds. Their purpose is usually analytical, but Cara becomes embroiled in something that's bigger than she expected. She comes from a poor city named Ashtown that has grown into the rival empire of Wiley Town, where pale-skilled rich people live.
I really enjoyed the elements of this story, the characters and world were great, I loved reading about them and how Cara thinks. I loved the complexities of their life and how starkly different from our own life they were. The bounds of the world are limited to Wiley and Ashtown and so we never really go beyond their individual goals. I still really enjoyed this and I liked the myth and mystery around Nyame, the god who inhabits the space between worlds.
There are a few different groups in play in this story, each playing their important part and being explained through the book's modest 320 pages. I think what fell short for me in this book is the direction the story went. I found that the middle of the book could have been something big and immense but it started randomly and I felt that it was ultimately not that major to the course of the story. I really felt the story falling apart around 250 and couldn't really see the motivation to why the story went the direction it did. I was surprised honestly about one change to their way of life late in the story; after it is all pieced together I wondered, was that really all worth it?
Still a decent read, I had a lot of fun and powered through it.
I turn away, trying to remember the last time I cared about anything to scream for it.
The Space Between Worlds is a refreshing and unexpected read for 2020. I'd place this in the same camp as The Last Policeman and The Gone World which I also read this year. This book is about Cara, a traverser who works for the mysterious Eldridge company; a traverser is someone who travels between worlds. Their purpose is usually analytical, but Cara becomes embroiled in something that's bigger than she expected. She comes from a poor city named Ashtown that has grown into the rival empire of Wiley Town, where pale-skilled rich people live.
I really enjoyed the elements of this story, the characters and world were great, I loved reading about them and how Cara thinks. I loved the complexities of their life and how starkly different from our own life they were. The bounds of the world are limited to Wiley and Ashtown and so we never really go beyond their individual goals. I still really enjoyed this and I liked the myth and mystery around Nyame, the god who inhabits the space between worlds.
There are a few different groups in play in this story, each playing their important part and being explained through the book's modest 320 pages. I think what fell short for me in this book is the direction the story went. I found that the middle of the book could have been something big and immense but it started randomly and I felt that it was ultimately not that major to the course of the story. I really felt the story falling apart around 250 and couldn't really see the motivation to why the story went the direction it did. I was surprised honestly about one change to their way of life late in the story; after it is all pieced together I wondered, was that really all worth it?
Still a decent read, I had a lot of fun and powered through it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, and Blood
Minor: Child abuse and Drug abuse