Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

3 reviews

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

Moderate: Animal death, Vomit, Trafficking, and Alcohol

bookishwondergoth's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Gore, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Minor: Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

ronjaorsomething's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved this book so much. The characters were very diverse in so many ways (race, sexuality, religion and class being the main ones). And the book managed to bring up societal issues in a really good way. I also liked the plot twists and how genuinely unpredictable the whole book was.

AND THE ENDING OMG it was perfect. The way it was very much a happy ending but not at all the way you'd expect. I was so happy that Cara ended up with Dell but still worked in Ash.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Grief, and Classism

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Racism, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent, and War