Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

39 reviews

leannanecdote's review against another edition

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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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templetoncecelia's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective 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

4.75


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uwadisblog's review

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adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

4.25


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bookishwondergoth's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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

3.0

This wasn’t at all what I expected, but in a good way. I thought I was going to get a load of cool spacey world-hopping stuff. Whilst there was a little of that, it was mostly a really thought provoking examination of things like race, class, poverty, assimilation, code-switching and social mobility. Also Mad Max.

Cara is an excellent, flawed and deeply determined main character and I couldn’t help but root for her. She quite literally inhabits the space between worlds, not just by jumping between them, but also the city of Wiley and all its light-skinned, privileged wealthy inhabitants, and the darker-skinned, poorer inhabitants of Ashtown. Her confusion, guilt, disgust, pride and internalised classism is extremely well done; you can absolutely tell Micaiah Johnson studies this stuff, both at actual university and the university of life too.

All of the side characters, including the antagonists, were also really excellent.

The reason why I’ve rated this book 3/5 stars instead of 4/5 is that as a story, I was less interested in what was happening. It wasn’t exactly a struggle to read but I did still find it a little boring. And although there was a canonical reason as to why the worlds were all so similar, I would dearly have loved to see more unique worlds, and more numerous worlds on page in general. We primarily hang out on Earth 0 and Earth 175. Though Cara travels to other worlds, we don’t see much of her actually in them.

Overall this is a solid standalone about those who traverse worlds both in a science-fiction sense, and in a literal, social-mobility sense.

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traa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging sad 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? It's complicated

4.0


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melodei3's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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? It's complicated

3.5


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blackcatkai's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

CW: Body horror, Murder, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Classism, Blood, Medical content, Addiction, Death of parent, Toxic relationships, Suicide, Grief

me: i dont like time travel
book: how about parallel universes?
me: .... go on

seriously, i didnt know how i was going to feel about this book going in as scifi is really not my go-to genre but i kept seeing it around and then my spouse told me how good it was so i finally gave it a try. and oh did Micaiah Johnson have me ENTHRALLED. this was fun, funny, shocking, stressful, and just wonderful. the pacing was just a smidge bit off for me in parts, but i am so glad i read it and i absolutely will read the next book when it comes out, thank you.

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gameoftomes's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad 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

I absolutely loved this book. It’s a stellar scifi novel about the multiverse and about identity. How different circumstances change the choices we might make and how to know someone to their core in spite of their multiversal selves. 

Cara is really smart, you get to see her thought process. It never feels like the author is just telling when she’s doing this. It’s so interesting to be in Cara’s head, her decisions always make sense with her character. Cara is wayyyy to hard on herself throughout the book though, but it checks out with her past that includes the death of her parents, a toxic and abusive relationship, and the horrible conditions of the place she grew up in. 

Great plot twists throughout the book. 3 big ones in the first 100 pages. The plot twists are spaced well, with foreshadowing and good writing that makes the twists make perfect sense within the story. 

Fully fledged science fiction world, never feels like info-dumping, it feels like discovery the way Micaiah Johnson writes it. I loved being absorbed into the world. 

I thought this was YA based on the cover, but it’s adult science fiction even though there is no gratuitous descriptions of violence and no explicit sex scenes. The protagonist is 26 and the plot is more complex then typical YA scifi, which tends to focus more on character and/or world building than plot. 

10/10 for me. 

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immovabletype's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

5.0


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kaitlinnoodles's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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


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