Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

153 reviews

rheagoveas's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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? Yes

4.25


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tangleroot_eli's review

Go to review page

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.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sakeriver's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

It’s always surprising—pleasantly so—to read a story in a familiar subgenre that feels like something you’ve never read before. Multiverse stories all (or almost all) have in common an exploration of identity, of what makes us is. And this one does that, of course, but it stands out for the distinctive voice of its protagonist, and the way she moves not just between worlds, but within the world she inhabits.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

crownoflaurel's review

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

5.0

5 ⭐ CW: violence, death, murder, abuse, sex work, suicidal ideation 

The Space Between Worlds by Michiah Johnson is a dystopian scifi story that is gripping and brutal. One of my friends has been bugging me to read this, and I finally got around to it. Let's just say this friend is two for two in the scifi recs. 

Earth has figured out that multiverses do exist, and Adam Bosch has created a way to traverse them. The catch is that in order to travel to these other Earths, your doppelganger has to have already died. We follow Cara, a traverser that is special, because out of the 300 and some Earths, she has died in most of them. 

As Cara traverses these different versions of Earth, she meets the same people living different lives, but discovers there are a lot of commonalities. Every world has a Wiley City, a walled city for the rich and elite progressives that denies access to those living in Ashtown. Ashtown, where Cara is originally from, is desolate and full of violence. When Cara starts to question why no other Earths have discovered how to travel, she finds herself enmeshed in corporate sabotage involving the multiverse. 

This was such a brutal read, but it was also so beautifully written. We learn so much about Cara on Earth Zero as well as a lot about her other selves. We also get a thread about her being in love with her distant handler, Dell, but that isn't what it seems either. So much sapphic pining. I loved seeing Cara's character growth and her growing morals all while being tough and ruthless. There is some nonbinary representation on the side, but it was nice to see how it was integrated into the world. 

I don't want to give too much away, but it's definitely worth the read if you were a fan of This is How You Lose the Time War (with less romance focus). 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kshertz's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-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

3.75

I enjoyed the whole concept! Multiverse but only available if you’re dead on earth and in most multiverses. So minorities become valuable because of the high mortality. 

I got confused a lot and not enough romance. But excellent commentary on Earth and lots of fantastic one liners reflecting our social world and all that’s wrong with Earth and it’s humans. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

thissagreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

This book had great potential, but when there’s a new concept of another earth, or hundreds of different worlds with their own rules, dress, way of life, etc. There MUST be more descriptions. It was really tiresome having to try to put together what a world looked like, remembering who people were and what world they were connected to- it was all too much for something that could’ve been so simply explained in the very beginning. I was disappointed by how slow and confusing it was to read, and almost DNF’d it but had hope that it would have a better ending, than a beginning…. sadly that was not the case, and I finished the book with more questions and annoyance than I wanted.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

prosenheim's review

Go to review page

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


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mormor4's review

Go to review page


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

workingdaley's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings