Reviews - Another Dimension of Us

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59 reviews for:

Another Dimension of Us

Mike Albo

3.05 AVERAGE

beccaperson's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

trin's review against another edition

2.0

Fascinating but flawed. This was one of those books that I enjoyed the most at the beginning, when I had no idea what was going on. The more that was explained of the plot and the world-building, the less engaged I felt. To put it another way, this starts out very "This book has everything:" astral projection! the 1980s! a murder house! big time skips! dream dimensions! a 100% queer cast! time travel! demons! the Spanish Civil War! And when you don't know yet how those things connect, it's kind of exciting. But then you start to find out. And it's just sort of like... oh.

Oh: the entire middle is a long sequence that feels like a cross between Inception and Inside Out. Oh: there are too many POVs. Oh: even when the entire cast is queer, it's still

Spoiler

annoying and upsetting to kill off a gay teenage boy, especially if it's clearly done to evoke BIG SADS but happens when the plot feels so muddled that it doesn't even really make sense as the sacrifice I think it is supposed to be? Also, I get that this is meant to be a metaphor in some respects for the AIDS crisis, but why not...write it differently this time, in a world with magic and so much more? Or write it in a way that gives the queer boy of color being killed some agency or a POV (he's one of the few characters who doesn't get one). Or don't do it and then immediately try to have a solemn moment with the exceedingly annoying spirit guide who's based on a commercial jingle character and who I wanted to stab.

Basically: I admire a lot of what Albo was trying to do with this book, and it's ambitious and immersive in certain details. But in others it's incredibly convoluted and I kind of stopped understanding what I was meant to be getting out of the story. mlm/wlw solidarity adventure? YES. But I also need the adventure itself to be coherent and satisfying.

dizzie_izzy's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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: Complicated

this book broke my heart. the middle was slow and i got bored but the romance was emotional enough to bring me to tears many times.

ofeverlong's review against another edition

2.0

I can find few good things to say about this book. For the first 20% or so it was well-written and intriguing, but then it completely went off the rails. It tried to tell about seven different stories at once, none of which came even remotely close to a satisfying ending. The pacing was absolutely dreadful. There were absolutely useless and irrelevant side quests. And then one of the only two actually genuinely likeable characters dies at the end. I never even want to think about this book again.

transparent_tea's review against another edition

3.25

dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

The first third of the book sets up the story, in the year 1986, then in the year 2044. Both timelines eventually merge into the year 2044, when things get a bit wonky (for lack of better terms).

I'm not sure why I decided to put this book on my TBR, but the story felt very all over the place; a combination of The Midnight Library, with a mixture of science fiction and a dash of occult. Truthfully, I only know astral projection from the hit TV series Charmed, from Pure Halliwell, and the way that astral projection was described here was something else.

I wanted to enjoy the underlying story of the AIDS epidemic and kind of folding the "virus" during 2044, but it didn't feel like both stories made much sense, until the very end where Pris understood the assignment and talked to her history teacher.