Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

45 reviews

lilybees's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Emotional abuse, Rape, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Drug use, Addiction, and Physical abuse

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

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

athnyx230's review

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, War, and Blood

Minor: Miscarriage

schnaucl's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad 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

This wasn't quite what I expected.  I was expecting it to be set on contemporary earth or maybe the near future.   That was probably my fault for making an assumption and this misalignment of expectations may have influenced how I felt about the book.

The idea that travel is limited to a few hundred worlds because otherwise they're too dissimilar to the traveler's world (and that they can start closely aligned enough for travel but become misaligned enough to make it impossible) is interesting.   And it doesn't seem tied to the particular traveler, the present circumstances of the Earth as a whole has to be pretty similar.    Consequently, most people's circumstances are pretty similar from world to world.   It's certainly different from most alternate reality books where someone tries on various lives completely different from their own (only to realize the life they'd been living was the best one all along).   It does mean that big historical moments and conditions have to be somewhat similar.  For example, just as a world with nuclear war would take itself out of alignment, so would one with much greater  equality, where some of the biggest problems have been solved. 

There's also some romance to it, the notion that the same people come together across multiple worlds.  Of course, those relationships aren't always healthy sometimes they're quite toxic.  

But mostly, of course, it's about exploiting other worlds.   Obtaining resources the prime world can't (or won't) extract on its own.    And letting things play out on other worlds so they can decide what to do (or not) on their own.   It's not quite clear how the data the travelers retrieve is gathered, but I suppose that's a minor detail.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder, Gore, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse

anarmandameg's review

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Classism, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Blood, Sexual violence, Murder, Body horror, and Emotional abuse

roxanned's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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

4.0

I had a good time reading this book.
The concept of the different worlds and that some realities are closer to Earth Zero's reality and some are very different from it is a concept I like a lot. To learn about different realities and what could have been is very interesting in my opinion. The world building in this book is not as pronounced as I would have hoped though. So there are some things I don't fully understand or wish I had more info on

(e.g. what exactly are runners? how does a world go dark? do new worlds come up? The whole downloading data from other worlds to use it)

. Nevertheless the story is interesting and I enjoyed it.
Another thing I like is that in every world some characteristics are more ingrained than others. And when taking the alternate selves of a character into account, every character is not entirely good or bad.   

This is mainly a sci-fi with a dash of sapphic romance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic relationship, Classism, and Death of parent

Minor: Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Blood

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

looseleafellie's review

dark reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

Cara works at a company that sends people to alternate universes to collect data. You can only travel to universes where you’re dead, so Cara is the ideal candidate for multiverse travel. But when one of her few living alternate selves dies mysteriously, Cara begins to unravel a conspiracy that threatens the multiverse.

My favorite book is This Is How You Lose the Time War, and I picked up The Space Between Worlds because it seemed similar. It’s a short-ish sci-fi book with alternate universes, sapphic yearning, and evil organizations to thwart.

However, The Space Between Worlds is more character-focused and contained. I loved how none of the characters — including Cara — are all good or all bad, especially when their alternate selves come into play. The book explores how your background and relative privilege can shape your personality and motivations, even if you’re technically the same person, which was very interesting. The romantic tension between Cara and Dell weaves throughout, but as a side plot to the main story.

Even in 330-ish pages, the world drew me in. The setting is grounded in the neighboring cities of Ashtown and Wiley City: one an impoverished community of survivors, the other a high-tech utopia (for those who have citizenship). While I expected a wider scale, the focused setting strengthened the book by allowing for exploration of the themes in a confined space.

One drawback of the short length is I found the ending a bit rushed. When I had 30 pages left, I thought, “they have to end all this in 30 pages?” I still enjoyed the ending, but would have liked extra time to sit in the emotions and feel things out more.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I think it’s great for fans of This Is How You Lose the Time War — or people who like character-focused stories about alternate universes in general.

CWs: Gore, violence, death, domestic abuse, classism, and mentions of drug addiction, homophobia, child neglect, and suicide.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Classism

Minor: Drug abuse, Homophobia, Child abuse, and Suicide

marioosa517's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Domestic abuse, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Classism, Blood, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Grief, War, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Cursing